Small-Cap Spotlight: Ceres Power and Loopup climbing high in a busy session among the tiddlers
Welcome to Small-Cap Spotlight where the Evening Standard business team will bring investors rolling coverage and analysis on all the major small cap news this morning.
Top story sees Ceres Power announce a collaboration with Weichai Power, one of China’s leading automobile and equipment manufacturing companies.
There are plenty of other updates out there for discussion.
Stay tuned.
Live Updates
Lots of action today. Plenty to get through.
Where to start.
Ceres Power has announced a collaboration with Weichai Power, one of China’s leading automobile and equipment manufacturing companies.
The AIM-listed fuel cell-maker said the agreement provides Ceres with direct access to China, the world’s fastest-growing market for its products.
Shares have risen 0.6p to 13.4p.
Meanwhile Speedy Hire, which rents tools, said revenues rose 2.2% to £377.4 million for the year to March 31 and pre-tax profits jumped by a quarter to £18 million.
Despite its size, Speedy Hire is viewed as one of those businesses which gives investors a view to what’s happening in the real economy, especially in the construction and infrastructure sectors.
Chief executive Russell Down said the market remains competitive, but the present year was off to an encouraging start with revenue ahead of the same period last year.
Shares were up 0.4p at 59.3p.
Zotefoams also making gains, up 2%.
The foam manufacturer said it has proposed a placing of up to 3.9 million shares at 530.00 pence each with existing and new institutional and other investors to raise £20.6 million.
The placing price represents a 2.9% discount to the closing price of 546.00p May 14.
The proceeds will be used to fund the planned capital investment of about £23 million in a new manufacturing facility in central Europe and "higher working capital associated with organic growth and product mix enrichment from higher margin high performance products sales".
The new facility is expected to open in 2020.
N+1 Singer was impressed, stating: "This is the third major capacity expansion to be announced recently (supplementing the US and UK additions) and another marker of the significant momentum and ambition within the business.
Loopup on the charge:
The remote meetings technology firm has announced a massive £61.4 million acquisition.
It will snap up MeetingZone Group - a UK-headquartered conferencing services provider with about 6,000 customers worldwide.
It will be funded via a new £17 million loan and £50 million in cash raised through a placing of 12.5 million shares at 400p a pop.
Transformational? Let's see.
News coming thick and fast this morning.
But shares in Draper Esprit are off 1%.
Draper Esprit is a venture capital firm with a good track record. It recently invested in tech unicorn Revolut and before that Transferwise.
Today it has backed French cloud-based call centre software business Aircall.
Other investors in the round included US firm NextWorld Capital, France-based Newfund and London’s Balderton Capital.
Obviously shareholders don't fancy it.
Jefferies likes it though. Has a buy on the stock:
Finally Allied Minds worth a mention. Shares in the technology focused investment company are up 5%.
Its subsidiary Federated Wireless has an update on its testing.
That's enough for one session. Same time tomorrow.
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