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Today's announcement may have had to be issued as an RNSNON as there isn't a measurable immediate financial impact, but it's still big news.

Saudi Arabia is building "21 cutting-edge entertainment destinations across 14 cities, featuring over 150 attractions, diverse dining outlets, local and international retail outlets".

And ACSO has been appointed as "the key provider of ticketing and visitor management technology for all destinations and sub-venues associated with the project".

Quite a coup. And presumably pretty materially financially rewarding. The only question is how long until fruition:

Https://www.londonstockexchange.com/news-article/ACSO/accesso-to-power-saudi-entertainment-destinations/16397455

Good news from Fieldwork Robotics posted elsewhere by acuere - a £600k grant win and an impressive new CFO.

That's over £1.1m of grants won by Fieldwork Robotics in the last 3 months alone:

Https://fieldworkrobotics.com/fieldwork-wins-government-grant-and-appoints-new-cfo-christopher-levine/

I decided to sell and take profits first thing after the "ahead of expectations" update this morning. Counter-intuitive really!

But the outlook going forward is pretty subdued - WH Ireland's new forecast for the coming year to March '25 has been reduced to 65.7p EPS, leaving SOLI on for me too high a P/E going forward in difficult markets.

SOLI are a quality company and may well prove that forecast conservative, but better to be safe than sorry for the moment if SOLI's share price drops back to say 1000p-1100p.

Cheers otemple. Yep, mea culpa time....coincidentally last night I was further researching CAPD's holding in Awale and came to a similar conclusion. Although at one point it appears that CAPD's holding actually increased further to 13.33m shares from the 8.33m I previously noted, in 2021 there was an 8 for 1 share consolidation. So, assuming CAPD even still owned their shares in Awale, the holding would likely be now worth less than £1m anyway. As you say, a shame.

I am however absolutely sure about CAPD's investment in WIA Gold, which keeps rising and is worth almost £8m.

Liberum say Buy and have a 200p target price. They summarise:

"A revised CY 24 P/E of 4.6x is attractive given the growth A CY 24 P/E of 4.6x is attractive given the growth. Inspired has a low carbon beta, but that should change as its ESG credentials become more apparent. Growth in newer areas like Optimisation, Software and ESG, should accelerate growth and drive a re-rating. Our SoTP suggests a TP of 200p."

And:

"FY 23 underlying EBITDA increased 20% to £25.2m and FD EPS was 3% ahead of estimates. Net debt was flat at the H1 level of £49m and cash conversion was below target as expected, but LTM conversion to February was > 100%.

We maintain our FY 24 FD EPS estimate of 13.7p, indicating 3% FD EPS growth. We make 4 key points: 1) Deferred consideration will fall sharply after FY 24; 2) A wealth of new KPIs shows cross-sell is working and increasing the life-time value; 3) Assurance has good visibility and is stable; and 4) At Energy Optimisation, EBITDA has increased £5m p.a. over the last three years. A CY 24 P/E of 4.6x is attractive given the growth."

An excellent 9 month update. Guidance is that trading will be "at least" in line with the upgraded expectations.

Cavendish have a 71p target here. They've raised their forecasts yet again, with PBT up 6% to £5.7m.

They now have an adjusted EPS of 4.9p to this May (up from 4.6p), rising to 5.4p EPS next year.

That's a P/E of 7.8 falling to 7.1.

In summary:

"Positive 3Q/24E Trading Update

Time has released a positive trading update for 3Q/24E revealing the 11th consecutive quarter of loan book growth to a new record of £190m (As at 3Q/23A: £157m). The loan book has reached this high following £66m (As at 3Q/23A: £53m) of new own-book lending in the 9-month period.

The growth has remained high quality, with the focus being on expanding the secured lending areas of Invoice Finance and Hard Asset Finance. The tilt towards secured lending has meant arrears have kept flat at 6% even as the book has grown substantially, and it is important to note that 6% arrears on a secured lending book is lower risk than 6% arrears on an unsecured book, given the recoverability rate of the loan is not captured in the statistic. Overall, revenues increased

20% to £24m (As at 3Q/23A: £20m) and plentiful operational gearing, aided by net interest margin discipline, pushed PBT up 40% to £4.2m (As at 3Q/23A: £3m).

In-line with management expectations, we have upgraded our FY24E revenue by 2% to £31.5m and upgraded our PBT by 6% to £5.7m. In terms of valuation, Time looks extremely cheap given it is trading on an FY25E basic P/E of just 7.7x and FY25E P/TNAV of 0.8x, despite over 20% ongoing earnings growth. We remain encouraged on Time’s outlook given it has achieved so much during a challenging period for the UK economy. The recent UK inflation figures and BOE commentary about imminent interest rate cuts bode well for continued expansion in Time’s loan book."

Looking forward to the H1 trading update given the positive outlook and rising order books in the prelims - the last couple of years have seen updates on 3rd April and 1st April, so next Tuesday or Wednesday after the Easter break seems likely.

Wow - Awale surged again in last night's trading - up 100% to $0.8! So CAPD's investment is now worth the best part of £4m....

This was on stunning drilling news (also good for CAPD as the operator) - the CEO's commentary is worth a read!

https://money.tmx.com/quote/ARIC/news/7824050364831601/AwalxE9_Hits_457_gt_Gold_over_32m_at_the_OdiennxE9_Project

"This drill hole is absolutely spectacular. I have been looking at gold projects for the last 20 years and have never seen anything like this. Odienné has produced very high-grade mineralization since we started drilling, though we always felt that some special things would come as we continued our work. The harder we press at Odienné, the more it gives back, and we've only just scratched the surface."

Good, solid results today are actually slightly ahead of those flagged in the trading update, with £25.2m EBITDA (against the £25m in the update). The adjusted EPS is 13.4p, so a P/E of just 4.7.

The divi is up 7% to a tasty 2.9p, a 4.6 yield.

Cash generation from operations is healthy at £18.7m and has improved greatly in this Q1 with the unwinding of working capital.

Of course some won't like the net debt increase and huge adjustments to get to the statutory figures. But this is primarily down to the additional consideration due on acquisitions which have paid off hugely (see the CFO's statement).

Most importantly, the outlook is extremely confident:

"Current trading and outlook

The secular demand from companies to reduce energy consumption, drive efficiencies and report against progress remains unchanged and underpins demand for the Group's services.

FY24 has started strongly, with the Group trading in line with expectations and with substantial cash generation as the working capital investment in Q4 2023 unwound.

The growing demand, and demonstrable success, of selling into new and existing customers, underpins the Board's confidence in the outlook for FY24."

Well, H1 bad, H2 looking good....

With a £3.72m cash pile against the now £5.7m m/cap, and a £650k expected profit for H2 and overall £400k+ profit for the year AEO still looks good value, particularly with the optimistic outlook. But the MMs have of course marked down heavily anyway.

Cavendish's extensive 21 page update note post-results includes some points worth noting:

- "Today’s release highlights: that the Board is considering options for the use of surplus cash including special dividends or buybacks; a strong start to H2 24 that is comfortably in line with our upgrades in January; and that management has identified multiple European countries for future expansion, with a new market potentially being announced in 2024"

- "A robust investment case – Fonix is focused upon leveraging its highly scalable, cloud-based platform to expand with existing clients and win new clients as mobile payments continue to scale. The structural strength of the platform is demonstrated by no churn from major customers in seven years, and it is diligently expanding its market-leading technology outside of the UK when led by existing clients, including becoming the market leader for interactive services in Ireland less than one year after FY23 launch. The successful execution of the strategy has driven Total Payment Value (TPV) to £268m in FY23 from £125m in FY18, adjusted EBITDA to £11.6m in FY23 from £3.3m in FY18, and underlying EFCF to £9.0m in FY23. We expect that any upside to our conservative forecasts would benefit from strong operational gearing through to EFCF, which would be returned to shareholders through the progressive dividend policy"

- "Since IPO in October 2020, Fonix has delivered a perfect record of six consecutive gross profit upgrades and seven consecutive adjusted EBITDA upgrades, as the platform’s momentum continues to build"

- "Through H1 24, management has continued to strategically focus on larger opportunities, including significant enterprise deals in the UK and international markets, and driving greater volumes of transactions with existing clients. Combined with the heterogeneity of the customer base, management are less focused on the absolute number of customers using the platform, and will move away from providing granular customer numbers in the disclosure. Instead, the disclosure will continue to confirm the customer base is over a given size, such as today’s release confirming the active customer base is over 120, following 122 active customers at FY23 results"

Moving up again this afternoon, up 3.2p, and at the highest it's been since last March.

Up 2p to 141.5p, and on lots of volume too with 212k shares traded already. Looking good. Yet still ridiculously cheap imho.

Awale were up another 8% to CAS0.39 last night on yet more successful drilling news. CAPD's holding is now worth £1.9m:

Https://money.tmx.com/quote/ARIC/news/7272985030761629/Awale_Resources_reports_more_significant_assay_results_at_OdiennxC3xA9_project_in_CxC3xB4te_dIvoire

Awale also "now plans to pursue further drilling to explore the shear zone-hosted target's potential", which is more good news for CAPD as the drilling contractor.

And WIA Gold were up 8% to new highs of A$0.82 - this holding is worth a further £7.75m.

Awale and WIA are now worth almost £10m between them.

Plus Allied Gold rose 5% to $3.35.

Now up 3.5p on over 2.4m shares traded. Looks like the dam is breaking....

Edison have a new note out - they have a 500p price target.

They forecast 45.4p EPS for the year just finished, with 46.4p EPS this year.

That's backed up with a 13p dividend, rising to 14p this year:

Https://d3s3shtvds09gm.cloudfront.net/c06876e7564a986049fdc15f35be0f12.pdf

"Outlook encouraging with c 100% valuation upside

The outlook is encouraging, evidenced by the underlying global trade situation (the

IMF raised global GDP growth estimates by 0.2% to 3.1% in February) and the forward order book, which was up 47% to US$83m, driven primarily by activity in the Sale and Purchase division. FY24 results are expected to be released by the end of May.

We have maintained our estimates for FY24 and FY25 but edged down our FY24 dividend expectations from 13.5p to 13.0p, which implies a modest reduction in our previous valuation of 520p to 500p per share, based on our dividend discount model"

Up 2p on almost 1.3m shares traded already today. Perhaps the excellent recent news flow is finally seeing the message and value here hit home.

Awale rose a further 17% on Tuesday and then another 20% overnight to CAD0.36, so CAPD are up another £500k since I last posted on this, and this investment alone is now worth £1.75m.

Cavendish also see £1.9m net cash at the end of this year, rising to £3.1m next year.

An encouraging update, and good to see Cavendish raise their target price to 15p.

Noteworthy that on a tiny £6.7m m/cap they now see £0.8m EBITDA and a small positive EPS this year, rising to £1.8m and then £3m EBITDA giving rise to 1.5p EPS and then 3.3p EPS.

The AI and ML-led technology update is very positive and expected to result in an enhanced AI-driven natural hydrogen search capability "in the coming months".

There's a lot of drivel written about AI, but GTC's core markets are certainly sectors which should benefit hugely from AI.