Conroy Gold and Natural Resources (CGNR), the gold exploration and development company, announced details of a step out drilling programme on the Derryhennet section of its Clay Lake gold target, in the gold trend which it has discovered in the Longford-Down Massif in Northern Ireland.
The programme is being carried out in association with the Company’s joint venture partner, Demir Export A.
Comment: Now we know why presumably psychic traders were buying into Conroy in recent days. The stock led by its spritely Professor has been on the back foot for some months. It is to be hoped that the floor is in, helped by the latest news.
Sosandar (SOS), the UK fashion brand, creating quality, announced a proposed placing. The Placing will be conducted via an accelerated bookbuild at a price of 22p in order to raise minimum gross proceeds of approximately £4 million. The company said it intends to use the net proceeds of the Placing primarily to accelerate the execution of its omni-channel strategy through further investment in stock, enabling increased provision of Sosandar’s product range in-store with third party partners including Sainsbury’s from Autumn Winter 2023 onwards.
Comment: Not a surprising move from Sosander in terms of the fundraise, which perhaps could be viewed as a growing pain. It will be interesting to see whether from later in 2023 what the state of play will be for companies in retail like Sosander.
Petro Matad (MATD), the AIM quoted Mongolian oil company, announced that, following the closing of the Retail Offer on the BookBuild Platform on 7 February 2023, 20,000,000 Ordinary Shares will be issued at a price of 2.5p per Retail Offer Share in connection with the Retail Offer, which was significantly oversubscribed.
Comment: Petro Matad took advantage of recent share price strength to deliver a chunky fundraise. Given that the company says this was “significantly oversubscribed” this could be one of the rare situations where the share price recovers relatively quickly after a placing.
Renalytix (RENX) announced a c.$20.3 million private placement of Ordinary Shares and American Depositary Shares. The Fundraise is expected to close on or about February 9, 2023.
Comment: Another situation where a company is taking advantage of recent share price strength. Interesting that the raise comes just a couple of weeks after the company was awarded a $10 million grant.
On 26 September 2022, Cellular Goods (CBX) announced its proposed acquisition of Cannaray Brands Limited and Love CBD Health Limited from Cannaray Limited. The company announced today that it has terminated negotiations in relation to the Transaction. The Board concluded that, as a result of changes in the deal itself, it was not in the best interests of shareholders to proceed. CBX also said it has been proactively reviewing its product range, proposition, financials, strategy and opportunities. Its focus will continue to be to develop and expand the Company’s business model and to position the Company for long term growth.
Comment: It is almost certainly correct that CBX is focusing on getting its act together rather than expanding. The only negative is perhaps that it should have addressed this before.
Argo Blockchain (ARB), a cryptocurrency mining specialist, said that in the month of January, Argo mined 168 Bitcoin which is an increase of 14% compared to 147 BTC mined in December 2022. It also said it wishes to address the class action lawsuit that has been filed against the company, which said it refutes all of the allegations and believes that this class action lawsuit is without merit.
Comment: It will be interesting to see how much of an influence the lawsuit will be on the nascent share price recovery of Argo. So far it seems to be shaking it off.
Trident Royalties (TRR), the diversified mining royalty company, noted the announcement by Lithium Americas Corp. that it has received a favourable ruling from the US District Court, District of Nevada for the appeal filed against the Bureau of Land Management for the issuance of the Record of Decision relating to LAC’s Thacker Pass lithium project.
Comment: The latest news should help shares of Trident, already on their highs, progress further.
Hardide (HDD), the developer and provider of advanced surface coating technology, announced its annual results for the year ended 30 September 2022. Revenue increased by 39% to £5.0m (FY21: £3.6m). Gross margin improved to 37% (FY21: 36%). Significant reduction in the EBITDA loss to £0.9m (FY21: £1.5m loss).
Comment: Hardide is giving the impression of being a decent fundamental turnaround situation, as we wait the hopefully inevitable swing to being EBITDA positive in the near future.
PYX Resources (PYX), the world’s second largest publicly listed zircon producer, provided an operational update for the Full Year 2022 ended 31 December 2022. The company noted a Strong increase in premium Zircon production and sale volumes with year-on-year production increasing to 9.1kt, a 25% increase as compared to FY 2021, and YoY sales increasing to 9.1kt, a 33% increase as compared to FY 2021.
Comment: Having had a rather rocky ride on the stock market thus far, it may be that the latest update turns the shares around after a painful bear run.
Agronomics (ANIC), which is focused on the field of cellular agriculture, announced its unaudited interim results for the six-month period ending 31 December 2022. The company said it has continued to focus on selective opportunities within the field of cellular agriculture to deploy capital during this half year, and now has over 20 companies in its portfolio with broad diversification across major protein categories and leading technologies across the cell culture and precision fermentation categories.
Comment: The company should be right on the zeitgeist in terms of what the market is looking for in terms of its investment remit. While the market cap is well over £100m, the share price trajectory needs to play catch up with the fundamentals.
Deltic Energy (DELT), the AIM-quoted natural resources investing company, announced a significant gas and oil discovery at Pensacola on Licence P2252 in the Southern North Sea.
Comment: Thankfully, the speculation from the Twitterati was correct on Deltic, something that does not happen too often. But as we know, good companies tend to get lucky.
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