Vast Resources (VAST), the AIM-listed mining company, said it wishes to announce a general update regarding the repayment of its asset-based debt facility and refinancing process. A&T Investments Sarl to which the Company has an outstanding debt of $5,820,000 has, as stated in the Company’s announcement of 27 June 2024, given notice that it will commence enforcement procedures of the security given to it by a third party if the debt is not repaid in full by 26 September 2024.
Comment: “For the love of God, and with all respect to shareholders, please throw in the towel. You do not have $5,820,000, and even if you did, there is no point going on given the track record of the company,” is perhaps what most observers of VAST are thinking.
Kromek (KMK), a developer of radiation and bio-detection technology solutions for the advanced imaging and CBRN detection segments, announced that it has been selected as a supplier under the UK Government’s Radiological Nuclear Detection Framework for the procurement of radiological nuclear detection equipment and supporting services for the Home Office.
Comment: Given that we could be on the brink of WWIII, it is not surprising that KMK is doing so well with high calibre counterparties such as the Home Office.
Ondine Biomedical Inc. (OBI), a Canadian life sciences company pioneering light-activated antimicrobial treatments, and Mölnlycke Health Care (Gothenburg Sweden), a world-leading MedTech company that specializes in innovative solutions for wound care and surgical procedures, announced a strategic partnership to bring Ondine’s Steriwave® nasal decolonization technology to the United Kingdom, EU, and Middle East markets. OBI said it was excited to be partnering with Mölnlycke Health Care, whose global reach, corporate vision and commitment to sustainable healthcare aligns perfectly with its own core values, purpose and mission. The Mölnlycke collaboration represents a transformative step towards its ambitious plans to combat HAIs and antimicrobial resistance globally. It looks forward to working with Mölnlycke in these initial key markets and beyond.
Comment: While the market and the share price is yet to catch up with events, it can be seen that OBI continues to rollout Steriwave®, both on its own and with strategic partners.
Metals Exploration (MTL), a gold producer in the Philippines, announced its unaudited interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2024. H1 2024 profit before tax of US$58.4 million (H1 2023: US$37.0 million). MTL said the first half of 2024 has been transformational for the Company. Operationally Runruno has continued to perform strongly whilst the corporate actions taken will provide a platform for the future growth of the Company.
Comment: Shares of MTL have been up over 100% both last year, and this year to date. Even though the lay of the land for the company has been like falling off a log, the performance is very impressive nonetheless.
Union Jack Oil (UJO), a USA and UK focused onshore oil and gas production, development and exploration company, announce its unaudited results for the Half Year ended 30 June 2024. Net profit of £788,996 (2023: £572,263). Gross profit of £1,338,776 (2023: £1,608,973). UJO said that the Board’s confidence in Union Jack’s continued growth is evidenced by the Company’s solid and profitable 2024 Half Yearly financial results, confirming its resilience, both financially and operationally.
Comment: Given all the activity on both sides of the Atlantic, all the RNS’s and the PR, one might have thought that UJO would have made a little more than the average petrol station.
Aterian (ATN), the critical and strategic metal-focused exploration and development company, announced its unaudited interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2024. ATN said these accounts reflect a loss of £504,000 (2023:£858,000) arising from administrative costs; this corresponds to the Company’s expenditure on overheads, operational and exploration expenses. Additional expenditure was incurred on mineral exploration in Morocco, Botswana, and Rwanda, where we are establishing a mineral trading business.
Comment: It might be the case that ATN should focus on just one or two projects, rather than the ten headlines in bold in the RNS. On this basis just being down half a bar is quite a result.
Electric Guitar (ELEG), the digital marketing and advertising company providing first-party data solutions, announced that its principal operating subsidiary, 3radical Limited, has won a new campaign with Mediacorp, Singapore’s largest content creator and national media network. ELEG said it was delighted to announce the rollout of this project with Mediacorp following the success of our test campaign. This collaboration not only strengthens its strategic presence in Southeast Asia, but also underscores its ability to deliver cutting-edge engagement solutions that drive significant business results.
Comment: ELEG is clearly making progress, and rolling out its first party data solution. The question is when the market will start to appreciate this by turning around the share price?
OptiBiotix Health (OPTI), a life sciences business developing compounds to tackle obesity, high cholesterol, diabetes and skincare, provides an overview of its MicroBiome Modulators product range. OPTI said it was pleased at the progress it has made with its microbiome modulators to date. It has developed unique science, scaled up processes, created a broad patent portfolio, published and presented its studies at international conferences, and in the last 12 months better understood the wide range of opportunities from partner discussions to help develop its commercial proposition. It was now focused on taking these unique products to market. It believes this is likely to include a combination of OptiBiotix’s own brand, partner brands for specific strains, co-development and license deals across different industry sectors (nutraceutical food ingredient, and pharma).
Comment: With the Aspartame spoof now well and truly out of the price, the company continuing to develop compounds that no one understands, and an ongoing PR promotion style that is counterproductive, shares of OPTI are back near one year lows. Answers on a postcard as to what a MicroBiome Modulator is.
Fulcrum Metals (FMET), a company focused on mineral exploration and development in Canada, announced its unaudited consolidated interim results for the six months to 30 June 2024. FMET said its journey over the last six months has been transformative as it focused on unlocking the untapped potential within mining tailings in Canada. The promising results from the first phase of its programme at Teck-Hughes highlights the potential effectiveness of Extrakt’s technology and sets the stage for sustainable gold recovery and long-term value creation for the Group’s shareholders. By strategically expanding its portfolio and divesting non-core assets, it is accelerating its path to revenue and positioning Fulcrum as a leader in environmentally responsible mining practices.
Comment: FMET has done its best to address the London market’s aversion to pure, slow, small scale exploration, by going down the tailings route. Unfortunately, most small cap investors are not big on tailings either. The main thing now is to get those revenues going.
Mirriad Advertising ( MIRI.L): This emerging content advertising and virtual product placement media group report Interims to June 2024. Its Revenues at £390k are disappointingly 34% lower reflecting the transitional period as sales migrate to partner-driven sales in a highly-competitive market and suffered from multiple delays to agreed campaigns. There was lower operating loss at £5.0m compared to £7.3m helped by cost reductions. It raised £6.8m in May 2024, at 1.25p a share to capitalise on the market power of its steadily growing roster of US entertainment ‘majors’ and ‘supermajors’ content providers using MIRI’s ‘unique’ technology. The net cash at end of June is £8.3m and while H1 had not delivered the revenue as expected the CEO is confident that it will come through in H2 as the sales strategy of building deeper partnerships with the largest media companies, advertisers and agencies delivers,
Comment (Jon Lev): At 0.4p with a £4.13m investors seem to have given up, so there seems to be an opportunity for the brave.
Keras Resources (KRS) provided an update on operations from its high-grade Diamond Creek organic rock phosphate mine and wholly owned Delta integrated processing facility. KRS said ramping up of its Delta Facility to full capacity is the next milestone achieved by the team in Delta in what has been a transformative year to date. The new integrated circuit is far more efficient than the previous plant at Spanish fork and has allowed us to continue to produce and sell its dry 10 mesh and 50 mesh dry rock phosphate products as well as producing PhoSul® granulated fertilizer in collaboration with our JV partners PhoSul LLC.
Comment: Last month’s spike towards 5p gave the impression that KRS could be a multi-bagger. This may yet prove to be the case, but I would appear that there are still some i’s to dot and t’s to cross before that happens.
Arrow Exploration (AXL), the high-growth operator with a portfolio of assets across key Colombian hydrocarbon basins, provided an update on operational activity. AXL said the horizontal wells at the CNB pad continue to surpass expectations. Arrow’s focus for the remainder of 2024 will be the completion of the six well horizontal well program at Carrizales Norte as well as a low-risk exploration well at the Baquiano prospect.
Comment: AXL continues to deliver an A+ performance, with the good news being that the market is appreciating this, and re-rating the company accordingly.
First Class Metals (FCM), the UK listed company focused on the discovery of economic metal deposits across its exploration properties in Ontario, Canada is pleased to provide an exploration update. FCM said that while it wants to emphasise that the samples submitted for photon assay do not cover the entirety of the samples collected along the trend-only those that were readily available-the results it has obtained are significant. They not only validate the findings from its fire assay results but also, and perhaps most importantly, reveal a new area of gold anomalism within the trend. This discovery reinforces the theory of the ‘Dead Otter Gold Trend’ adding potential for further exploration.
Comment: The brief July spike for FCM have the impression that the market had finally started to appreciate the company, especially on the basis that it may divest some of its newly proven up assets. This may still prove to be the best way forward.
Jubilee (JLP), a diversified metals producer with operations in Zambia and South Africa, provided an update on the implementation of its Copper Strategy in Zambia. JLP said establishing a stable power supply was crucial to maintaining steady progress in its projects. The frequent rolling outages posed an ongoing risk to the stability of our operations, so it was grateful that it now has secured a reliable, continuous power source. This has been a critical factor in achieving design throughput at its new Roan front-end module.
Comment: The question with JLP is still how to make the right noises to get the share price back where it belongs. The RNS updates continue to be too heavily weighted towards the mea culpa style, whereas on an operational basis the company is actually going great guns.
Adriatic Metals (ADT1) announced an operations update for the Vares Silver Operation. ADT1 said it has achieved a major milestone with mining its first ore stopes in August, leading to a record month of production, in addition to record development metres. Production in September has already exceeded that total, another positive step as it continues to ramp up towards nameplate production.
Comment: With shares of ADT1 having halved between May and August, one can see that the company is instigating a fightback after the previous CEO departed in the spring.
Transense Technologies (TRT), the provider of specialist sensor systems, announced its final results for the year ended 30 June 2024. Adjusted profit before taxation up 20% to £1.31m (FY23: £1.09m). TRT said it was delighted with the progress made in the year across the Company’s entire operations. It has strengthened the Board and executive leadership, whilst making some key appointments in senior management and across the commercial and engineering teams to achieve a major step up in activity.
Comment: Although one would guess few are aware of what kind of specialist sensors TRT serves up, the company and its share price have certainly turned the corner this year, and this state of affairs appears likely to accelerate.
Microlise Group (SAAS), a provider of SaaS based transport technology solutions to fleet operators, announced that the Company has entered into a 5-year contract renewal with J.C. Bamford Excavators Limited (JCB), the global manufacturer of construction equipment, which will cover recurring SaaS software licences and hardware sales until September 2029.
Comment: A five year contract renewal with the mighty JCB is clearly nothing to be sniffed at. It is a shame that SAAS is not more widely appreciated in the market by investors.
Elixirr International (ELIX), an established, global award-winning, challenger consultancy, report its unaudited interim results for the six months ended 30 June 2024 (H1 24). 22% increase in profit before tax, totalling £12.0m (H1 23: £9.9m). ELIX said it does things differently and its performance in the first half of the year further proves that its strategy and model is working.
Comment: Apparently, part of “doing things differently” means that someone covering RNS highlights every day for the past two years has not heard of ELIX. Investor relations slip aside, this does indeed appear to be a great growth company prospect.
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