Small business finance provider Time Finance (LON: TIME) revenues are increasing and this is falling through to profit. In the six months to November 2022, revenues are 27% ahead at £13.2m and pre-tax profit improved from £1.2m to £2m. This is well on the way to the full year forecast of £2.8m. The gross lending book is £152.7m. The share price recovered 8.95% to 20.7p.
Zanaga Iron Ore Company (LON: ZIOC) has completed the acquisition of a controlling shareholding in the Zanaga iron ore project from Glencore Projects in return for the issue of a 48.26% stake in the company. Glencore has appointed Peter Hill and Denis Weinstein to the board. Glencore has exclusive marketing rights for the iron ore produced at the mine. The Zanaga Iron Ore share price rose 8.21% to 5.275p. Zanaga Iron Ore is in the top 40 AIM companies in terms of this year’s share price performance.
Business disposals and tax adviser K3 Capital (LON: K3C) is recommending a 350p a share cash bid from a vehicle controlled by affiliates of Sun European Partners. This values K3 Capital at £272m. The share price had already risen when the bid talks were announced, and it is 7.56% higher on the day at 341.5p. K3 Capital joined AIM in 2017 at 95p a share.
Redx Pharma (LON: REDX) has entered a clinical trial collaboration with Merck for the supply of Keytruda to be used in the combination arm of Redx’s PORCUPINE2 phase 2 clinical study evaluating RXC004 as a potential treatment for patients with biliary cancer. The share price rose 6.19% to 60p.
Education technology company Dev Clever (LON: DEV) plans to seek to leave the standard list and that has hit the share price of Asimilar (LON: ASLR), which owns 72.3 million shares and 35 million warrants exercisable at 25p each. The Asimilar share price has slumped by 58.1% to 1.625p. Dev Clever, which is rebranding as Veative Group, shares were suspended at 30p in December 2021, and it believes that a lack of interest in smaller companies means it is not worth staying listed. It may return to the market in the future. The Dev Clever investment accounted for around two-thirds of the Asimilar net asset value of £30.9m at the end of March 2022 – based on a 27p share price. Asimilar is valued at around £2m.
Broker and wealth manager WH Ireland (LON: WHI) revenues declined from £17m to £14.3m and it moved from profit to an underlying loss of £900,000. Both divisions lost money and market conditions are still challenging. However, the full year loss should be lower. The share price slipped 16.4% to 23p. This is the lowest the share price has been since 2003.
Restaurants operator Fulham Shore (LON: FUL) increased interim revenues by 26% to £49.9m and it has opened four sites since September. A range of cook-at-home Franco Manca pizzas have been launched. Management is cautious about the future even though trading in the first two months of the second half was 12% ahead. Costs are increasing and transport problem are having a negative effect. The share price declined by 15.6% to 9.5p.
North Sea oil and gas project developer Orcadian Energy (LON: ORCA) is in discussions with a preferred FPSO provider for the Pilot field but it is also exploring other concepts that could reduce capex. Pro forma cash is £1.2m. Farmout discussions could start after further progress has been made in field engineering development. WH Ireland has a fair value estimate of 259.2p a share. The share price fell 14.3% to 16.5p. The July 2021 placing price was 40p and the most recent placing was at 35p.