SMALL CAP MOVERS: MicroSalt raises £3m after tasty stock market debut

The junior market got its first primary listing of the year with the £18.5m debut of MicroSalt plc on Thursday, raising a tasty £3m for the low-sodium salt maker.

The shares were issued at 43p each under the ticker symbol ‘SALT’.

Rick Guiney, CEO of MicroSalt, commented: ‘We are pleased to announce our successful fundraising and admission to AIM, which is an important step in our development and provides an excellent platform for future growth.

‘The World Health Organization has set an ambition to reduce sodium intake by 30 percent by 2025, and MicroSalt is well-placed to help meet the rising demand for lower sodium products with our disruptive, proprietary product and manufacturing process. ‘

So far things are looking good, with shares up 20 per cent to 52p on Friday.

Microsalt’s controlling shareholder TekCapital plc has a 77 percent stake in the company, which, funnily enough, is worth about the same as TekCapital’s market capitalization of £17.8 million.

There was little excitement this week from the AIM All-Share Index, which closed 0.95 percent higher at 756, although this was an improved result compared to a flat FTSE 100.

We can attribute this to the lack of real macroeconomic surprises. To no one’s surprise, the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of England kept the base interest rate at 5.5 percent and 5.25 percent respectively.

However, global shares were good on Friday, thanks to the tech euphoria emanating from Google parent company Alphabet and Amazon’s profit figures, even though Magnificent 7 colleague Apple failed to impress.

Bushveld Minerals Limited On Thursday, the stock flew 50 percent higher after it confirmed the closing of a crucial refinancing.

The vanadium producer successfully restructured $47.1 million of convertible debt with Orion – through the OMF Fund III vehicle.

Bushveld shares corrected on Friday, but still ended the week a decent 9 percent higher.

Kromek Group plc The latest interims impressed the market, with the developer of radiation and biosensing technology solutions seeing steady revenue growth and gross margins of 54.2 percent, compared to 40.4 percent in last year’s interims.

Cavendish analysts rewarded the group with a price target increase from 25p to 28p and the shares rose 25 percent in response.

Location Sciences Group plc added 9 percent when it published details of its reverse takeover (RTO) by e-commerce tracking software specialist Sorted.

The company will now be called Sorted Group Holdings, with a new management team consisting of Carmen Carey as CEO and Mahmoud Warriah as Chief Financial Officer, alongside Petar Cvetkovic as non-executive director.

In heavy industry Helium One Global topped the pile again with another doubling of its market capitalization. Year to date, the exploration company is up a whopping 430 percent.

The meeting comes after Helium One revealed it has successfully drilled the Itumbula West-1 well in Tanzania to a total depth of 961 metres, with the well encountering elevated helium shows described as ‘more than twenty times background levels’.

Other AIM top players saw a materials engineering firm Versarien plc increased by 40 percent and Global petroleum increase of 62 percent.

Orchard Funding Group shares were sent 30 percent lower due to concerns over the Guaranteed Asset Protection (GAP) offering.

A niche insurance project aimed at covering the spread between a vehicle’s current market value and purchase price when an insurer pays out the former in the event of an accident, the GAP market is on thin ice following an FCA review.

More than 20 percent of Orchard’s revenue comes from GAP, so shareholder concerns are justified.

The shares of BSF Enterprise plc fell by 14 percent after the publication of the London-listed biotechnology company’s annual financial results.

The group, which develops alternatives to lab-grown meat, posted a net loss of £1.5 million due to higher operating, legal and consultancy costs following the acquisition of tissue engineering company 3D Bio-Tissues (3DBT).

Shares of Inspiration Healthcare Group plc fell 15 percent after the company said sales would be lower than expected. For the twelve months ending January 31, 2024, sales are likely to be around £37m, while net debt is around £6.4m.

NWF Group plcthe food, fuel and animal feed distributor, fell 12 percent after profits and sales fell and an investment in a new location dampened forecasts.

Ingenta plc shares fell 10 percent after the AIM-listed software group’s latest trading update.

Unaudited revenues rose 3 percent year-on-year to £10.8 million, while adjusted profits rose 10 percent to £2.2 million.