Alliance News: Reeves will pledge to “fight” for “growth” and say that Britain “can do so much better” . The chancellor will say that Britain has “fundamental strengths” but has been “held back” and accepted “stagnation” in her address in Oxfordshire on Wednesday.
Reeves’ speech in Oxfordshire on Wednesday is expected to lay out plans for projects around the Oxford and Cambridge region, as well as confirm support for the expansion of Heathrow Airport and reiterate the government’s backing for the redevelopment of Old Trafford.
Comment: Rather than spending / borrowing billions and making a hash of things, it would be easier to just offer tax incentives or private tenders, but then that would not be socialism. With tax / red tape as is, no one is going to come to the UK to bail out the welfare state / NHS in Europe’s Silicon Valley, or any other valley. At least Orwellian slogans are cheap.
GreenX Metals (GRX) presented its Quarterly Activities Report for the period during and subsequent to 31 December 2024. Highlights included in January 2025, GreenX was selected as as one of eight exploration companies to participate in BHP’s 2025 Xplor program. BHP Xplor will provide GreenX with approximately US$500,000 in non-dilutive funding to support and accelerate its exploration plans at the Tannenberg Copper Project (Tannenberg) during the 6-month period of the program. In October 2024, GreenX reported a successful outcome of the international arbitration claims (Claim) against Republic of Poland. The Company was awarded approximately £252m. GreenX received outstanding antimony results at the Eleonore North project in Greenland (Eleonore North or ELN).
Comment: Just on the basis of the highlights picked out here GRX has knocked the ball out of the park, beating Poland, riding high in Greenland (Trumpland), and being part of a BHP initiative.
Neo Energy Metals (NEO), the near term, low-cost uranium developer, announce it has entered into a landmark agreement with South African mining company, Siyakhula Sonke Empowerment Corporation (Pty) Ltd. NEO said this transaction underscores our commitment to South Africa’s transformative B-BBEE policies and the principles of sustainable and inclusive development. Through this partnership, we aim to create lasting value for our stakeholders, empower local communities, and contribute significantly to the region’s economic upliftment.
Comment: Not only a decent DEI move, but also one that gets NEO further up the food chain as far as being a significant South African uranium play. It may also get the shares back on the right side of a penny over coming weeks.
Ceres Power (CWR), a leading developer of clean energy technology, today provides a post period end trading update ahead of the announcement of its full year results for the year ended 31 December 2024. Record order intake greater than £110 million due to the signing of two new manufacturing partners and an electrolyser system partner. Revenue will be at the upper end of previous guidance, between £55-60 million (2023: £22.3 million), an increase of approximately 150% compared to 2023.
Comment: Although cash is down from £140m to £102m, there should be enough to see CWR past the end of the Labour government without having to raise any more. Plus, it is in a sector that Ed Milliband’s eye wateringly expensive net zero dreams are made of.
hVIVO (HVO), a specialist early-stage drug development contract research organisation (CRO) provided an unaudited trading update for the year ended 31 December 2024. Revenue up 11.9% to £62.7 million (2023: £56.0 million). Cash of £44.2 million as at 31 December 2024 (31 December 2023: £37.0 million). HVO also announced the acquisition of two clinical research units in Germany.
Comment: HVO bounces back in terms of its revenues and cash at hand, something which should reverse the rather mysterious share price decline of the autumn. Indeed, the company has plenty of cash to pay a dividend as well if it wanted to.
Cykel AI (CYK) announced the successful integration of DeepSeek R1, a breakthrough open-source large language model, across its digital worker platform. The integration is expected to reduce the Company’s future AI infrastructure costs by up to 96%, with DeepSeek R1 costing just 4% of comparable model rates while matching or exceeding their performance. CYK said just as cloud computing made processing power abundant and fundamentally transformed software, DeepSeek R1 makes AI reasoning abundant and will transform digital workers.
Comment: Perhaps the Chinese knock off AI will transform the space, especially for small companies, given the open-source angle? As with many such things, the proof of the pudding will be revealed in time, especially given the way that many in the market were / are still questioning how transformational AI really is.
ANGLE (AGL), a liquid biopsy company announce new, successful results for the Company’s dual circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) and CTC-DNA workflow using, for the first time, an end-to-end Illumina solution for analysis. AGL said it sees a substantial opportunity for both ANGLE and Illumina to work closely together and are grateful to Illumina for the opportunity to present its DNA dual analysis data at their webinar hosted by the highly rated EACR.
Comment: All cashed up, AGL is in a purple patch in terms of development, something which looks as though it could achieve transformational results.
Velocity Composites (VEL), a supplier of composite material kits to aerospace, is pleased to announce the Company’s audited results for the twelve months ended 31 October 2024. Total revenue increased 40% to £23.0m (FY23: £16.4m). US revenue quadrupled to £7.9m (FY23: 2.0m) as production ramps up at US facility. Adjusted EBITDA profit of £0.4m (FY23: loss of £1.6m)
Comment: The swing to EBITDA positive is all the more impressive in the current environment, and the US growth the icing on the cake. Indeed, off the back of this the market is unlikely to begrudge the company raising some cash given that it is only sitting on £0.7m.
Helium One Global (HE1), the primary helium explorer in Tanzania with a 50% working interest in the Galactica-Pegasus helium development project in Colorado, USA, acknowledges the Blue Star Helium announcement issued today regarding the Galactica-Pegasus project in Las Animas County, Colorado, USA.
Comment: While we await fresh news from the Saudi Arabia of Helium (Tanzania) we have yet another update from Colorado, which was not a diversionary investment at all.
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.
