PayPoint (LON: PAY) is bidding for Appreciate (LON: APP) in a deal that values the prepaid vouchers and Christmas savings group at £83m – based on a PayPoint share price of 580p. The offer is 33p in cash and 0.019 of a PayPoint share for each Appreciate share. A 0.8p a share dividend will also be paid to Appreciate shareholders. The PayPoint share price has fallen to 547p, so the bid is not worth quite as much now. PayPoint believes the acquisition will be earnings enhancing. The Appreciate share price has jumped 60.1% to 41.7p.
Schroders has been building up its stake in musicMagpie (LON: MMAG) from 10.1% to 12.4%. This sparked a 58.9% share price increase to 16.05p. The April 2021 flotation price was 193p. The company has completed the roll out of SMARTDrop Kiosks in Asda stores. There are 290 stores with kiosks providing a way of recycling mobile phones.
Biome Technologies (LON: BIOM) increased third quarter revenues by 77% to £1.9m. Both bioplastics and radio frequency divisions grew. Even so, Biome is being more cautious about pre-commercial customer projects and full year revenue expectations have been trimmed from £6.8m to £6.29m, which is still higher than the £5.73m generated in 2021. A full year loss of £1.1m is forecast. The share price jumped 50% to 72p.
Harland & Wolff (LON: HARL) has secured a debt refinancing term sheet with Astra Asset Management. This would increase the available facility from £70m to £100m. The initial period would be two years. Financial close should be before the end of the year. This will provide working capital for large contracts. There has been a delay to the hearing date of the proposed Islandmagee gas storage project. Even so, the share price rose by 44.5% to 8.96p.
Further director buying at Inspecs (LON: SPEC) has helped the share price recover 43.8% to 69p. Chief executive Robin Totterman bought 850,053 shares for his pension fund at 47p each. He owns 18.3%. He sold 6.3 million shares at 195p each when the company floated in early 2020. The eyewear supplier warned about weak trading a fortnight ago.
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Fallers
Companies that are running short of cash are finding it increasingly difficult to raise money and they are dominating the fallers this week. Applied Graphene Materials (LON: AGM) and PCF Group (LON: PCF) have both been hit by sharp share price declines due to failure to secure cash. Applied Graphene Materials has not been able to raise cash from a share issue and more cash will be required at the beginning of 2023. The share price fell 61.2% to 4.75p. PCF Group has also been unable to raise money or secure a strategic transaction, so PCF Bank is withdrawing from the UK banking market. The PCF board wants shareholder approval for the cancellation of the AIM quotation. The PCF share price is down by 63.1% to 0.6p this week.
Sareum (LON: SAR) says the UK authorities have not approved the proposed SDC-1801 clinical trial. A further review of non-clinical data is likely to be required so the safety and tolerability trial will not happen this year. The shares declined 34.5% to 90p.
Fashion brand Joules Group (LON: JOUL) is still assessing financing options, which includes CVA planning. Joules says trading for the eleven weeks to 30 October 2022 and working capital is worse than expected. Bridge financing is required. Outerwear and knitwear sales have been hit by milder weather. Online sales have been weak, but store sales are slightly better than expected. Higher levels of promotion have held back margins. Net debt was £25.7m at the end of October 2022, which leaves little headroom after other requirements. The share price slumped 32.7% to 9.22p.
