Graft Polymer (UK) (GPL), a business focused on the development and commercial production of polymer modification, biological supplements, and nano-drug delivery systems, announced its audited results for the 12 months to 31 December 2022. The company said its versatility and ability to adapt its offering to meet customer demand and find solutions to, what at first may seem like an unsolvable problem, is its unique selling point. The investment made, in terms of equipment to expand its biopharma division and storage capacity, has resulted in a higher volume of customer enquiries, with its first revenue generating commercial order from MGC Pharmaceuticals product, ArtemiC™ Rescue, announced in August 2022. It envisions this to be the first of many such orders into our biopharma division.
Comment: The market has adopted something of a wait and see attitude towards Graft Polymer, and left it under the radar to date. However, the company’s bespoke offering and its first commercial order last year implies that the biopharma division could lead the group forward, and turn heads.
Greatland Gold (GGP) provided an exploration and development update for Havieron, its gold-copper project located in the Paterson Province of Western Australia and released its Quarterly Report for the three months ended 31 March 2023 which included an update on Havieron. The company said the Havieron team continues to deliver strong results at the project. Total development has now surpassed 2,025m and pleasingly, decline development is continuing in line with the schedule. Its most recent drilling activities highlight the high grade nature of the SE Crescent zone. In addition, drilling has delivered high grade intercepts outside of the present Havieron mine plan, including additional gold and copper mineralisation intersected at the northern limits of Eastern Breccia zone.
Comment: GGP investors are still looking for the big announcement to get the share price heading north once again. Arguably, the company has already done and said enough to make this happen in terms of Havieron.
EnSilica (ENSI), a mixed signal chip maker, announces a trading update for the financial year ending 31 May 2023. The company said it has continued to trade strongly across the second half of FY23, delivering excellent new contract momentum, alongside completing a number of pre-existing projects in the period. As a result, the Board of Ensilica now expects the results for FY23 to significantly exceed current market expectations for EBITDA by approximately 30%, with revenue expected to remain in line with market expectations.
Comment: ENSI is just the kind of stock the RNS Hotlist was made for, and one would assume that after a retracement since the dizzy heights of January, the shares are set to recover following today’s update.
Sound Energy (SOU), the transition energy company, provided a financing update, including in relation to the company’s Tendrara Production Concession, onshore Morocco. The company said the Phase 2 senior debt process has completed its due diligence phase with recommendations to Attijariwafa’ s credit committee prepared by the Arranger. It now awaits the conditioned financing offer which it expects shortly from the bank’s committee. It looks forward to providing further updates as the process moves forward.
Comment: It would appear that Sound shares turned the corner – for good, in 2023, and we can look forward to further progress given positive debt news.
Smarttech247 (S247), a provider of AI-enhanced cybersecurity services providing automated managed detection and response for a portfolio of international clients, today announces its maiden unaudited interim results for the six months ending 31 January 2023. The company said it is already seeing the benefits from its admission with continued revenue and EBITDA growth, and it is now well funded to support its expansion strategy. It is actively progressing with the delivery of its new products and traction with international customers is continuing to develop as evidenced by its growing sales pipeline.
Comment: While London investors tend to baulk at tech companies, it can be said that with S247 we have a company which is so solid in the space that the valuation is likely to only go one way. So far this rather punchy call has been proved correct.
United Oil & Gas (UOG), the full-cycle oil and gas company, announced its audited results for the year ended 31 December 2022. The company said its work programme in Egypt in the first half has started strongly, with a focus on development drilling and workovers. It is delighted with the result of the ASH-8 well which is producing at stable rates and looks forward to the results of the ASD-3 well which spud in March. For the remainder of the year, newsflow will centre around the results from its ongoing Egyptian drilling programme, the expected completion of the sale of Maria and further progress on the Jamaica farm-out. The company said it was very pleased with the progress that it is making on the Thali PSC and the NJOM-3 well, and it believe that it is close to having a final schedule for this well, which will be transformational for the Company. It is finally able to see viable rig slots appearing, and it is now working on the assumption that it will be able to get the NJOM-3 well spudded over the next nine months.
Comment: The run up to the spudding of NJOM-3 seems to be equivalent to a lap of honour for UOG, which finally looks like it has shed the demons of the past. One would expect the recent recovery in the shares to be a lasting one.
Brave Bison (BBSN), the social and digital media company, reported its audited results for the year ended 31 December 2022. Adjusted EBITDA of £3.0m (FY21: £1.8m), an increase of 67%, and Adjusted Profit Before Tax of £2.6m (FY21: £1.4m), an increase of 86% and ahead of market expectations. The company integrated four businesses in 2022 and is pleased with the outcome: a profitable and cash generative social and digital media company that operates from trend to spend for our customers. Its value proposition is now well-defined, and it is delighted to welcome a number of new enterprise customers to Brave Bison.
Comment: It is interesting that the “stock market commentator grapevine” has been hearing for quite some time that Brave Bison was a company to watch and could be an outperformer. Today’s update from the company suggests that such smoke signals were correct.
Shield Therapeutics (STX), a commercial stage pharmaceutical company, announced its unaudited preliminary results for the year ended 31 December 2022 and reports a business update covering recent developments, including significant Q1 2023 Accrufer® growth. The company said It has been an extremely busy and productive first quarter of 2023 as it focused its attention on the implementation of our new agreement with Viatris. Creating brand new sales territories and the recruiting, hiring and training of its 50 sales representatives and new managers has been its primary focus.
Comment: The company is making loud noises regarding its expansion strategy, something which the market may finally start listening to in the wake of today’s update.
Avacta Group (AVCT), a life sciences company developing oncology drugs, announced that the first patient has been dosed in the US under its IND Application in Avacta’s phase 1 multi-centre trial evaluating the safety and tolerability of AVA6000, a novel tumour targeted form of doxorubicin and Avacta’s first therapeutic product based on its proprietary pre|CISION™ technology. The company said the US trial sites in New York and Seattle will play a key role, along with other sites in the UK and US, in this multi-centre trial both in the dose escalation phase and in the dose expansion phase which we expect to begin in the second half of the year. Dosing the first patient in the US is a key milestone and reflects the continuing excellent progress in the ALS-6000-101 clinical trial and the Therapeutics Division as a whole.
Comment: Things are really starting to accelerate fundamentally for Avacta, and it is perhaps surprising that the share price has not yet caught up with events such as the first patient in the US.
Panther Metals (PALM), the mineral exploration group, announced its audited financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2022. The company said it was advancing various strategies to add value to the portfolio, such that component parts may achieve self-sustainability and in which Panther will retain a significant position, through joint ventures, partial divestment in subsidiaries or even project sales.
Comment: The market continues to underappreciate all the achievements PALM has made and is making, with a solid example being the recent IPO of Fulcrum Metals (FMET). At least in the weeks ahead of today’s update there has been the start of a recovery in sentiment and share price.
Cizzle Biotechnology (CIZ), the UK-based diagnostics developer, announced its audited results for the year ended 31 December 2022. The company said it had continued throughout 2022 in developing a blood test for the early detection of lung cancer. Its proof-of-concept protype test is based on the ability to measure a stable blood plasma biomarker, a variant of CIZ1. CIZ1 is a naturally occurring cell nuclear protein involved in DNA replication, and the targeted CIZ1B variant is highly correlated with early-stage lung cancer.
Comment: There has been a decent turnaround in terms of both share price and sentiment towards CIZ, and one would imagine there will be an even greater one as the company finesses its all important early lung cancer detection test.
ENGAGE XR Holdings (EXR), a metaverse technology company, provided a trading update for the first three months of 2023. The company said Q1 2023 trading has been in line with the Board’s expectations, with strong revenue growth in the period. Following the successful launch of ENGAGE Link, the Group’s fully featured corporate metaverse in November 2022, the Group has seen encouraging engagement with enterprise customers, and Q1 2023 has delivered revenue up approximately 40% compared to the equivalent period last year.
Comment: Although tech focused companies tend to face an uphill battle on the London market proving their worth to investors, EngageXR has at least been making the kind of fundamental progress that could move the dial.
Mosman Oil and Gas Limited (MSMN) the oil exploration, development, and production company, said that it has secured a new lease adjacent to the Cinnabar lease in Texas, USA. Mosman is the Operator and Mosman will have a 78% working interest. The principal terms of the lease are: 1.Payment of $36,000. 2. Initial term of eighteen months that may be extended by the drilling and production of a well. Whilst there is production, the lease would be “Held by Production” 3. A Royalty of 25% of gross production (which is standard in this part of Texas).
Comment: Fans of MSMN will be pleased to note that the latest lease has cost rather less than the cost of a petrol station. Ideally, this underpins the recent recovery in the stock.
Power Metal Resources (POW), the London listed exploration company seeking large-scale metal discoveries, announced results from the recently completed 2022/2023 drilling campaign at the 1,478.6 km2 Molopo Farms Complex Project targeting a large-scale nickel and platinum group element discovery in southwestern Botswana. The company said it was very pleased to present this set of drill results, which have been long awaited. It has provided a comprehensive analysis of the results achieved as well as a detailed exploration history of the Molopo Farms Complex and of our Project area.
Comment: The company’s new CEO Sean Wade has already hit the ground running in terms of pushing POW forward, something which is underlined by the recent share price rebound, and that latest drill results.
Oracle Power (ORCP), a developer of green energy projects, provided the following update on activities during Q1 2023 and implementation of its realigned corporate strategy, which focuses on the development of renewable energy generation projects. The company said the rapid developments in the global green hydrogen space are nothing short of amazing and it is witnessing a huge leap in the appetite for large-scale renewable energy in industry, transport and aviation at a time when ‘traditional’ energy costs are spiralling and becoming increasingly problematic due to climate change implications. Alternative sources of clean, green energy are badly needed globally.
Comment: Oracle has indeed flipped its strategy to the zeitgeist of green energy, and is gaining momentum in the space at a time when energy security is critical to countries and companies alike.
Wishbone Gold (WSBN) announced reprocessed drill results from the Cottesloe project (including Cottesloe East announced in January) following the digitisation and combining of all previous data sets. The company said Terra Search finding and analysing this historic drill and exploration data provides a major step forward in its knowledge of the Cottesloe group. Using this data its effectively building off three historic drilling programs providing several years of data. Coupled with its new experience of the MT technology it is pleased to be this far ahead before starting its own drill campaign. With silver, cobalt, lead and zinc grades this high in the targeted area this is hugely promising.
Comment: With WSBN shares at relatively low levels, it can be said that nothing of current encouraging developments is in the price at the moment, a situation which should be resolved relatively soon.
Disclaimer & Declaration of Interest:
The information, investment views, and recommendations in this Zaks Traders Cafe interview are provided for general information purposes only. Nothing in this interview should be construed as a promotion or solicitation to buy or sell any financial product relating to any companies under discussion or referred to or to engage in or refrain from doing so or engage in any other transaction. Any opinions or comments are made to the best of the knowledge and belief of the commentator but no responsibility is accepted for actions based on such opinions or comments. The commentators may or may not hold investments in the companies under discussion.
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