Paragon Banking Group saw underlying profits jump 61.8% to £194.2m in the year to 30 September. This is up from the £120m profit recorded for the same period a year earlier.
The group has announced a full year dividend of 26p, which increased from 14.4p last year.
Nigel Terrington, chief executive, said: “We have delivered an outstanding performance in 2021, which is testament to the strength of our operating model, the quality of our customer base and the capability and adaptability of our people.”
“Every lending business in the Group has this year made excellent progress, and at over £2.6 billion, aggregate new lending now comfortably exceeds pre-pandemic levels.
“We have made huge strides on the funding side, growing retail deposits by 18.4% at attractive rates, and have delivered significant digital improvements as part of the Group’s cloud-based strategy,” he added.
“We enter 2022 with strong pipelines at near-record levels, improved margins and the capital to continue to invest in and grow our business, as well as deliver additional returns for shareholders via a new buyback programme and materially increasing our full year dividend,”
Supreme has reported a 9% growth in revenue to £61.1m.
The maker of goods including vapes reported a surge in revenue growth by 192% for its sports nutrition and wellness goods, as it acquired nutrition brand Sci-MX earlier this year. Supreme also acquired Millions & Millions and Vendek.
“The combination of Supreme’s extensive retail relationships combined with our high volume, great value product proposition continued to underpin our strong profit performance in the first six months of trading in the current financial year,” said Sandy Chadha, the chief executive.
“Our market-leading Vaping category, alongside our high growth Sports Nutrition & Wellness division, continue to outperform their respective markets – further demonstrating our ability to attract and maintain consumer demand.”
“The second half of the current financial year has started well and our established business model, alongside our diverse product portfolio, provides the Board with confidence in the Group delivering a good performance in the second half and beyond.”
A decade after it was taken private by current chief executive Carolyn Cross, Ondine Biomedical Inc has returned to AIM. The previous AIM quotation was cancelled on 7 September 2011 and the TSX listing was also cancelled. The value of the deal was C$3.19m and the flotation value is more than 50 times that, although it does include new money.
Hospital acquired infections is an enormous potential market. Revenues are starting to accelerate as the company’s first product is being used in Canadian hospitals to reduce drug resistant infections, as well as at a meat processing plant. Nasal infection...
Windward Ltd has developed AI-based software that enables real-time information about seafaring vessels to be transmitted to their owners. Windward has already spent $25m developing its technology. This is an enormous potential market.
Management argues that Windward is the only company that has complete coverage of security, safety, compliance, environment and ocean freight. Competitors operate in up to three of these segments.
The cash raised will fund further development and additional data sources, as well as helping to boost sales and marketing. The shares opened at 162.5p and ended the d...
Hardide (LSE: HDD) reported its depressed Covid finals for the Y/E September 2021 and as expected it was a hacking great LBT (Loss before Tax) of £2.8m on £3.6m Revenue.
The 28% fall in revenue was accompanied by a 1% increase in Administration costs to £2.8m although going forward a relocation into more efficient premises is expected to make savings of £100k. In February £0.8m was raised at 30.9p a share and along with a soft Covid loan of £250k cash is around £1.5m. The Board are confident that maintaining its production capacity, during these hard Covid time, will pay dividends.
HDD dev...
The FTSE 100 gained on Monday as investors stepped in to take advantage of lower prices delivered by selling late last week.
The confidence to take shares higher stemmed from optimism around the impact of the Omicron and possibilities the strain may be Midler than first thought.
“Monday brought a solid rise for the FTSE 100 despite the continued spread of the Omicron variant as investors reacted positively to suggestions from officials in the US and South Africa that the latest strain of Covid might carry milder symptoms,” says AJ Bell investment director Russ Mould.
“It doesn’t feel like we are out of the woods yet, particularly as, even if this definitely proves to be the case, increased transmissibility could mean a wave of hospitalisations from a lower proportion of people getting really sick.”
“It still feels like we’re in the guesswork stage of working out what the impact of Omicron will be so it would be naïve to rule out further volatility as markets attempt to work out exactly what’s going on.”
Commodity shares were big gainers and added a significant number of points to the FTSE 100 on Monday morning.
Commodity prices rose after China cut their reserve ratio and Saudi Arabia increased their oil prices.
“BP and Shell helped give the FTSE 100 some support as Saudi Arabia lifted its official oil prices as it looked to address the recent slide in crude,” said Mould.
BP and Shell were both up 1.9% at the time of writing.
The reserve requirement ratio (RRR) dictates how much capital banks have to hold in reserve. Lowering the RRR will improve banks’ liquidity in an effort to encourage them to increase lending and boost the economy, in the face of ongoing property concerns.
Skillcast Group provides content and software to companies for their training and compliance requirements. The UK is the main market, but there are also customers in the EU and other parts of the world.
There were annual recurring revenues of £5.06m at the end of June 2021 - they were below £3m at the end of 2018. The subscription revenues continue to grow, while professional services revenues are being maintained. The business has consistently generated cash and does not appear to capitalise development costs.
The shares are tightly held with the board and five other shareholders owning more ...
Hydrogen Future Industries was originally going to be called Hydrogen One, but the name was similar to an existing quoted company, so it had to be changed, which delayed the flotation. There is a long list of potential assets that the company would consider acquiring. It covers most things that have a connection to hydrogen.
Hydrogen Future Industries believes that the quotation will improve its negotiating position and help to find an acquisition.
The shares opened at 10.5p (10p/11p) and stayed at that price for the first three days of trading. There were 370,000 shares traded on the first da...
Outt.com aims to transform the UK social care staffing sector. Having already achieved 105% overfunding, with 290 investors thus far, this innovative team is hitting every target.
With investments starting at just £10.20 and ambitions to reconfigure the fragmented multi-billion pound care recruitment market, the potential is substantial.
The current Crowdcube funding raise closes on 11th December 2021, so there is limited time remaining for investors to get on board.
Outt.com Crowdfunding Investment Opportunities
Launched in late 2020 and initially focused on the Greater London area, outt.com was founder-funded in response to the widespread staffing shortages impacting social care across Britain.
Since then, the partners have developed a rapid registration model and future-proof digital application, embracing remote communications and dynamic responsiveness.
With a management team comprised of accomplished social care professionals, backed by digital expertise and proven through the Beta launch, the technological solution looks to:
Reduce vacancy fulfilment from weeks to just hours, with in-built compliance functionality.
Provide full candidate support 24/7, promoting fairer pay and enhanced worker rights – an approach which quickly attracted 700 applicants during testing phases – now at 2,500 registered candidates.
Meet the extraordinary demand for qualified care professionals, forecast to reach an additional need of 490,000 care workers by 2035.
Advocate for better employment terms, providing competitive pay rates, lower employer costs and fully compliant PAYE taxation structures.
The early-stage venture has achieved £669,000 in beta revenueto Nov21, a positive balance sheet in the first year-end accounts, and is now eager to push into the broader market.
Backed by an InnovateUK Government grant, the app has gained considerable traction during this period and is a participant in The Growth Accelerator programme.
It expects to generate revenues of £43 million, with forecast pre-taxation profits of £2.5 million over the next few years.
The Social Care Investment Climate
Worth over £50 billion a year, the adult social care industry relies on conventional staffing agencies that overwhelmingly fail to meet an ever-growing demand.
Disparate recruitment strategies, low retention metrics and failure to attract new talent and skill compound the issue, making it extremely difficult for millions of care facilities to offer sufficient capacity to generate viable profits and maintain high standards of care.
Outt.com, designed and tested by a highly experienced team, addresses these entrenched issues, reimagining the agency fee model to offer a streamlined, digital and highly effective alternative.
This approach uses tech-led strategies to offer cost reductions, higher placement competition, and absolute flexibility for employers and candidates.
Steve O’Brien, the co-founder alongside head of legal Ben Oakley, says:
“The social care sector is amidst a huge staffing crisis.Over the last 18 months, our team has developed new tech to provide a real solution.
As a technology-powered, people-based business, we knew that crowdfunding was an excellent chance to offer investment equity to get involved in the company through a regulated platform.”
Investment take-up demonstrates a keen appetite to support the Outt.com mission, building on existing accomplishments to pave the way for faster, fairer and ultimately more efficient social care recruitment.
Invest in Outt.com Through Crowdcube
Interested investors have just a week to take advantage of this exciting crowdfunding opportunity, set to close on 11th December with significant overfunding.
When the raise ends, the business intends to:
Release the fully tested software to the broad UK social care market, expanding recruitment capacity and accessibility to organisations across the board.
Invest in sales team growth, enhancing the existing strong social media presence, and reporting in high-visibility publications.
Launch into the next phase of enterprise growth, hitting a market in severe need of reform.
On-board employers in major metropolitan regions and key social care hubs, including Birmingham, Manchester and Sheffield.
Prepare for a submission into the NHS tendering process in 2023 (annual spend £6.2 billion on temporary and contract staffing).
Invite new applicants, targeted to reach 700 per month as indicated by test campaigns.
When Outt.com hits the market running, it intends to make a sizeable impact and forever change how managers in social care organisations rebalance their depleted workforces.
The FTSE 100 carved out minor gains on Friday as the market digested the latest instalment of US jobs data.
The FTSE 100 was up 0.45% in mid afternoon trading on Friday following the release of the Non-Farm Payrolls which heavily missed expectations. However, the FTSE fell into the close but hang on to weekly gains.
Economist estimates of 550,000 jobs added in November proved to be significantly more than the actual reading of 210,000.
The initial market reaction saw UK equities fall, only to be quickly bought into by traders looking forward to what the data means for the Federal Reserve and their pace of tapering.
US equities were choppy as the weak jobs reading cast doubts on the Fed’s recent hints at a faster pace of bond purchase tapering.
The headline figures was a major disappointment in what was otherwise a strong report that saw the unemployment rate fall and prior reports revised higher. US unemployment fell to 4.2% vs expectations of 4.6%.
We’ve added 1.1M jobs in the last 3 months and are now 3.9M jobs short of Feb 2020 level. Omicron is the big question mark going forward. pic.twitter.com/nMVe9cHeVW
However, with the discovery of the Omicron variant, the decision to taper is not a one dimensional assessment of the jobs market, but a careful consideration of economic health with soaring inflation and the unknown impact of Omicron.
Despite the uncertainty, markets remained little changed on Friday with the FTSE 100 holding onto the rebound from last week’s selling.
