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Plant Impact saw its shares wilt to an all-time low this week after the crop enhancement group revealed it had put itself up for a quick sale. 

The company said it had been left up the creek without a paddle after German pharma giant Bayer broke a pledge on purchases of its flagship soybean product, Veritas. 

Back in July Bayer’s CropScience Brazil subsidiary agreed to a reduced purchasing plan for Veritas for 2017-18 after weak farmer demand led to an inventory build-up. 

Bitter taste: Plant Impact said it had been left up the creek without a paddle after German pharma giant Bayer broke a pledge on purchases of its flagship soybean product, Veritas

Those issues were supposed to be temporary, but that doesn't look to be the case, with Bayer now saying it won’t even be able to meet its lessened commitments. 

Without those sales Plant Impact will be left with a sizeable cash hole and said it would need to raise around £7million before April in order to keep the lights on. 

As a result the firm has now put itself up for sale 'with an accelerated timetable' in attempt to complete a deal early next year. 

Less drastic options are also on the table, including a sale of major assets or some sort of refinancing deal. 

Investors still weren’t keen though, with the stock shedding 69 per cent of its value to 6.7p. 

Another small-cap licking its wounds this week was Forbidden Technologies following a strategy update from its new boss which went down like a lead balloon. 

Forbidden shares slumped 25 per cent to 4.31p as chief executive Ian McDonough revealed that results for this year will be below those of last year. 

McDonough said a high profile proof-of-concept trial with a major UK broadcaster, mentioned in a stock market release back in April this year, had finished without the customer signing on the dotted line. 

The former BBC Worldwide man, who has opted to replace most of the company’s sales and marketing teams, claimed these were 'exciting times at Forbidden Technologies' as he unveiled plans to turn the company's fortunes around. 

With the shares having halved in the last year, it is the sort of excitement long-suffering shareholders could do without. 

There was better news for US-based iodine producer Iofina, which jumped by a quarter to 16.5p on the back of a solid production update yesterday. 

Downward spiral: Another small-cap licking its wounds this week was Forbidden Technologies following a strategy update from its new boss which went down like a lead balloon

The company’s four operating IOsorb plants continue to deliver encouraging results, with second half production on track to exceed 265 metric tonnes (MT) - comfortably ahead of the 225-250 MT it had initially expected. 

Barring any sudden major issues, Iofina reckons full-year iodine production should total more than 500 MT, which compares well with last year’s figure of 474.2 MT. 

Assuming all goes to plan, the company will have smashed last year’s total despite having one fewer plant in operation. 

Iofina is in the process of bringing on a new plant, which continues to make progress 'well within expected timeframes and budget'. 

On the whole though the junior market looks like it might have finished for Christmas a week early, with the AIM All-Share losing 2.3 points, or 0.2 per cent, to 1,014.4 across the week. 

That was nowhere near good enough to register a win over the blue chips though as the FTSE 100 gained 55.4 points, or 0.8 per cent, to reach 7,438.4 come this afternoon. 

Weighing heavily on the junior market was specialist information management solutions provider Idox, which saw 40 per cent wiped from its market value this week. 

Done deal: Software Quality Systems had the top riser medal round its neck today after it said yes to a lucrative takeover offer

Last month, the group put out a year-end trading update which said full-year underlying earnings were likely to come in at around £23m. 

Well, on Wednesday Idox was forced to backtrack on that guidance, claiming that a 'small number of revenue items' were included in November’s update that probably shouldn’t have been. 

The end result is that underlying earnings for the 12 months to the end of October are likely to be nearer to £20m, which represents an almost ten per cent fall compared to last year (£21.5m). 

Idox blamed the sudden absence of its chief executive Andrew Riley though illness as one of the reasons for the miscalculation but shareholders weren’t in a forgiving mood. 

It wasn’t all doom and gloom though. 

Software Quality Systems (SQS) had the top riser medal round its neck today after it said yes to a lucrative takeover offer.

The firm - which, funnily enough, supplies software quality services - saw its shares surge by 55 per cent as German outfit Weilchensee 884 lodged an 825p a share cash offer, valuing SQS at just over £281m. 

SQS shares closed yesterday at 527.50p, so the offer represents an impressive 57 per cent premium.