The junior market got its first primary listing for the year with MicroSalt plc’s £18.5million debut on Thursday, which raised a tasty £3million for the low-sodium salt manufacturer.
Shares were issued at 43p each under the ‘SALT’ ticker symbol.
Rick Guiney, chief executive of MicroSalt, commented: ‘We are delighted to announce our successful fundraise and admission to AIM, which is an important step in our development and provides an excellent platform for future growth.
‘The World Health Organisation has stated ambitions to reduce sodium intake by 30 per cent by 2025, and MicroSalt is extremely well placed to help meet the rising demand for lower sodium products with our disruptive, proprietary product and manufacturing process.’
Things are looking good so far – shares were up 20 per cent to 52p come Friday.
Debut: The junior market got its first primary listing for the year with MicroSalt’s £18.5million debut on Thursday, which raised a tasty £3million for the low-sodium salt manufacturer
Microsalt’s controlling shareholder TekCapital plc has a 77 per cent stake in the company, which, funnily enough, is worth about the same as TekCapital’s £17.8million market capitalisation.
There was little in the way of excitement for the AIM All-Share Index this week, closing 0.95 per cent higher at 756, though this was a better result compared to a flat FTSE 100.
Chalk it up to a lack of any real macroeconomic surprises. To no one’s shock, the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England held base rates at 5.5 per cent and 5.25 per cent, respectively.
Global equities were buoyant on Friday though, thanks to tech euphoria emanating from Google-parent Alphabet and Amazon’s earnings beats, even if Magnificent 7 colleague Apple failed to impress.
Bushveld Minerals Limited flew 50 per cent higher on Thursday after it confirmed the closing of a vital refinancing.
The vanadium producer successfully rearranged $47.1million of convertible debt with Orion – via the vehicle OMF Fund III.
Bushveld shares saw a correction on Friday, though still closed the week a decent 9 per cent higher.
Kromek Group plc’s latest interims impressed the market, with the developer of radiation and bio-detection technology solutions seeing steady top-line growth and gross margins of 54.2 per cent compared to 40.4 per cent in the previous year’s interims.
Cavendish analysts rewarded the group with a target price upgrade from 25p to 28p and shares rallied 25 per cent in response.
Location Sciences Group plc added 9 per cent as it published details of its reverse takeover (RTO) by e-commerce tracking software specialist Sorted.
The business will be called Sorted Group Holdings going forward with a new management team comprising Carmen Carey as chief executive and Mahmoud Warriah as chief financial officer alongside Petar Cvetkovic as a non-executive director.
In the heavy industries, Helium One Global was top of the pile once again with another doubling of its market capitalisation. Year to date, the exploration firm is up a walloping 430 per cent.
The rally comes after Helium One revealed that it successfully drilled the Itumbula West-1 well in Tanzania to its total depth of 961 metres, with the well encountering elevated helium shows described as ‘over twenty times the background levels’.
Other top AIM risers saw materials engineering firm Versarien plc up 40 per cent and Global Petroleum up 62 per cent.
Orchard Funding Group shares were sent 30 per cent lower due to concerns over its guaranteed asset protection (GAP) offering.
A niche insurance project aimed at covering the spread between the current market value and the purchase price of a vehicle when an insurer pays out the former in an accident, the GAP market is on thin ice following an FCA review.
Over 20 per cent of Orchard’s revenues come from GAP, so shareholder fears are merited.
BSF Enterprise plc’s shares were knocked 14 per cent lower following publication of the London-listed biotechnology company’s full-year financial results.
The group, which is developing lab-grown meat alternatives, posted net losses of £1.5million due to increased corporate, legal and advisory costs following the acquisition of tissue engineering company 3D Bio-Tissues (3DBT).
Shares of Inspiration Healthcare Group plc dropped 15 per cent after the company said revenue would be lower than anticipated. For the 12 months ended 31 January 2024, turnover is likely to be around £37million, while its net debt is about £6.4million.
NWF Group plc, the food, fuel and feeds distributor, sank 12 per cent after its profit and sales dropped and a new site investment dampened forecasts.
Ingenta plc shares were off 10 per cent following the AIM-listed software group’s latest trading update.
Unaudited revenues increased 3 per cent year on year to £10.8million, with adjusted earnings adding 10 per cent to £2.2million.
