April saw a burst of activity on the PLUS stock exchange with four new companies admitted to the market, bringing the total number of new PLUS companies joining in 2010 to eight.
Admissions – the new companies in April were:
- Bioventix (market cap: £9.85m), a biotechnology firm.
- Japanese Turnaround Capital (market cap: £2m), a company that specialises in acquiring consumer loan portfolios from consumer finance companies in Japan.
- Central Asia Minerals and Resources (market cap: £1.25m), a company focused on identifying investment opportunities within the minerals and resources sector, principally within developing countries of central Asia.
- Teknomining (market cap: £3.8m), a mining company with exploration licences within Turkey and focused on the identification of copper, chromium and iron-ore deposits.
Applications – the PLUS exchange continued to receive a number of new applications bringing the total to eleven submissions for the year, including:
- In House Group, a former AIM company engaged in acquiring property portfolios for break up and resale, with a current portfolio of residential properties.
- Imperial Music & Media, a company focused on investment and acquisition opportunities in the music and media markets.
Fundraising – PLUS companies continued to use their quote to raise capital. Notable among the six PLUS-quoted companies accessing the market for secondary rounds of fundraising in April, was Webb Capital, with a placing of almost £1m.
In addition, further to the announcement in March of a strategic investment by the City of London Group plc, St Helen's Finance plc completed a placing of £435,000 by way of an unsecured convertible loan note. City of London Group plc has also made available a £1m lending facility to St Helen's Finance (SHF), to provide funding for professional services firms through its new SHF Legal funding product.
Events – PLUS was involved in a number of events in April, including the leading investor show Master Investor, held at the Business Design Centre in Islington and organised by T1ps.com. April also saw the first two retail roadshow briefings showcasing growth company investment opportunities on the exchange. Organised by PLUS-quoted company Three’s A Crowd, the briefings are aimed at private investors, private client brokers and analysts. The first event was held in Manchester with PLUS-quoted companies Dotdigital Group, Team (Impression) Holdings and Zeta Compliance Group attending. More recently, PLUS visited Edinburgh with PLUS-quoted companies Frontier IP Group, Innovative Software Direct and National Milk Records.
In May, PLUS will be hosting the PLUS Awards for the third year, where the achievements of PLUS companies and their advisors are recognised.
“We’re pleased to note that the excellent levels of activity we saw in March increased further in April. Interest continues in our market as we aggressively push the PLUS primary market offering and strive to increase the visibility of PLUS companies with the private investor community,” said Paul Haddock, Head of Capital Markets at the PLUS stock exchange.
