Member Info for jange

Pre-tax profit came in at £5.5m (2011: £6.8m) on revenues of £93.3m (2011: £88.6m), slightly shy of expectations of £94m, with profits offset by an exceptional items charge of £1.8m. Underlying profit from operations increased by 12.3% to £6.6m. The exceptional items charge was due mainly to the non-cash impairment charge associated with the firm's withdrawal from the volume automotive communications business.

Plastics business Carclo has pleased its investors after increasing its dividend and unveiling Chris Malley as its new Chief Executive. Malley, who has been with Carclo for thirteen years, is replacing Ian Williamson, who will retire from the board in March of next year.

Eden Research said on Tuesday that it is "disappointing" to see that its share price has fallen since joining AIM, but was keen to emphasise that it will be "maximising the value of its IP [intellectual property] through the development of existing and new commercial opportunities". The company's European review process will be completed within the next 12 months, which the firm believes will inherently increase the value of the IP it has. In addition, next year the company expects to see the first product registrations coming through in the agrochemical sector, as well as sales of products which incorporate Eden's technologies in the animal health and biocide markets where the regulatory requirements are much simpler than in the agrochemicals sector.

Maxima Holdings, an information technology business systems and managed services company, has secured two key networking and security solution contracts totalling £1.75m. The first of these includes a contract with a leading UK telecommunications company to deliver a major security solution valued at £1.0m and the second is with a major UK government executive agency to provide a major networking project valued at £750k. "These recent contract successes clearly demonstrate that our turnaround strategy is on track," the firm commented.

Speech recognition specialist Eckoh has signed a new contract worth a minimum of £1.1m per annum with a global financial services company to provide a dedicated VoiceXML telephony platform for handling their customer self-service enquiries from across the globe. The company also unveiled its full year results, which saw it deliver a turnover of £10.4m (2011: £6.7m), pre-tax profit of £1.3m (2011: loss £0.6m) and earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of £2.1m (2011: £1.2m). Cash levels remained stable at £5.37m.

Sensors specialist Transense Technologies has announced that its trading division, IntelliSAW, has entered into a strategic distribution agreement with Simpro Engineering, which provides power protection and control systems technology to the electric power industry. As part of this agreement Simpro will provide distribution for IntelliSAW's innovative wireless/passive electrical switchgear temperature monitoring system in the Malaysian market. Simpro will also work closely with IntelliSAW in developing other Southeast Asian markets.

DiamondCorp shares fell 2.5% despite the company saying diamond recoveries were better than expected and costs were well within budget at its Lace mine in South Africa. The firm said it had recovered 7.33 carats per hundred tonnes, 47% above budget, including an 8.3 carat good quality white gem diamond. The company is undertaking a tailing operation, sifting through minerals already mined to find leftover diamonds.

A "roll-stock" order for the group's foam product received in 2011 will not be repeated in 2012, further reducing turnover. In a statement to the company's AGM on Tuesday, however, AMS's Chairman Dr Don Evans stressed the revenue decline will only have a "negligible" effect on profits.

Advanced Medical Solutions, the wound care specialist, has warned currency movements and the end of a rolling order are likely to hit full year revenues. AMS bought a German firm, RESORBA, in 2011, the effect being that more revenues are denominated in euros. The euro's current weakness means the company will see revenues decline when income is translated into sterling

The market likes what it sees from May Gurney, at 11:53 the shares were up 7.5%.

To underline the point, the order book now stands at £1.5bn, up from £1.4bn this time last year, with a £4bn pipeline of "bidding opportunities". Not surprisingly, confidence is high, leading to a 28% increase in the total dividend to 8.42p per share.

Revenues were also strong, rising 22% compared to 2010/2011 to £695.3m. May Gurney is already benefitting from cost cutting across the public sector and expects the trend to continue, adding: "It is expected that there will be further cuts in public spending and we believe that the impact of the next Comprehensive Spending Review will drive further outsourcing of services which are currently in-house - like highways, transport and environmental services - to address the imperative to reduce costs

May Gurney, the infrastructure support firm, believes it's going to get a big boost from the public sector's financial woes. For the year ending on March 31st May Gurney saw underlying profits before tax up 17% on the previous year at £28.4m, which was just ahead of the consensus forecast of £27.7m.

"We have a proven management team, a strong balance sheet with significant cash balances and unused working capital facilities. This provides the comfort and support for our investment plans and also the continued progressive dividend policy. The strength of our order books gives the board confidence for a strong second half performance and further growth in year 2012/13."

Richard Shacklady, Chairman of Pressure Technologies, said: "Our two main divisions are on upward trajectories with improving order books and no shortage of ideas and initiatives to grow the businesses. I am pleased to report that order books for the year 2012/13 are already starting to fill. All our businesses are better balanced and better managed than they were two years ago. This provides optimism that we will secure significant organic growth over the next three to five years.

The interim dividend was increased by 0.1p to 2.5p per share. The increase in sales was a result of increased export activity to the oil and gas market by the Cylinders and Engineered Products divisions. As anticipated, sales to the defence sector were lower than 2011 due to the phasing of deliveries on defence projects. Sales to domestic industrial gases markets were flat through the period.

Pressure Technologies, a high pressure systems engineer, has returned to the black after enjoying a leap in revenues for the half year ended March 31st. Pre-tax profits came in at £0.46m, compared to a loss of £0.31m in 2011, while revenues reached £12.6m, £2.3m higher than those seen the previous year. Basic earnings per share were 3.1p, against a loss of 1.9p last year. Over the half year cash levels rose from £2.9m to £3.5m.

Sorry that you havent had a reply ill send one off myself and let you know the score............

looking very good here.......good steady rise's on a regular basis

Another good steady rise here again............