Results round up

Standing tall amid results highlights was MacLellan (MLG), the facilities management and cleaning business chaired by serial AIM entrepreneur Bob Morton. Calendar 2005 figures reached record levels, with pre-tax profits rocketing 244 per cent to over £5 million on £232.8 million sales. The shares clipped 2.5p higher to 99.5p on Friday; a new 52-week high.

Also winning plaudits with sweet-sounding full year figures was acquisitive marketing services counter Cello (CLL). For 2005, Cello chimed in with pre-tax profits of £4.2 million from sales of £52.1 million. Analysts are looking for profits of £5.7 million this year.

Elsewhere, TEG Environmental (TEG), the green technology venture, cheered followers with news of a breakthrough 2005. The group’s ‘in-vessel’ composting technology, delivered through a ‘Silo Cage’, is one of the few approved for treating animal by-product waste and offers a real economic alternative to landfill for local authorities, food processors and waste management ventures. Annual figures revealed first meaningful sales, though losses grew to £1.6 million.

Friday’s risers and fallers

Drug discoverers enlivened the market on Friday, with Henderson Morley (HML) racing up 52 per cent to 1.875p as the market warmed to news of negotiations regarding a possible licensing deal for its Ionic Contra Viral Therapy (ICVT) technology.

Heading in the opposite direction – for the second successive day, and despite issuing results from a Phase 111 study of its cannabis-based multiple sclerosis drug Sativex – was GW Pharmaceuticals (GWP). Off 4.75p on Thursday, the shares surrendered a further 25 per cent to 95p today.

‘Buy-and-build’ recruiter Imprint (IMP), fronted by Irish management duo Brian Hamill and Pierce Casey, chose St Patrick’s Day to issue excellent figures for 2005, a transformative year for the group. Pre-tax profits surged more than 260 per cent higher to £4.5 million, and Hamill announced the group’s first dividend since its May 2001 float.

Friday also proved a fruitful session for Scottish debt solutions newcomer Invocas (INVO), which danced to 145p on its AIM debut. Charles Stanley helped the company, which specialises in Protected Trust Deeds, the Scottish equivalent of IVAs, to raise £9.5 million at a placing price of 111p.

Looking Forward

AIM dealings start soon in Kalahari Minerals, which has raised £6 million at 15p for uranium and copper prospects in Namibia. Corporate Synergy is adviser and broker and Ambrian Partners joint broker to Kalahari, which has 49 per cent of the Husab project between Rio Tinto's long-standing Rossing uranium mine and Paladin Resources' Langer Heinrich uranium development project.