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With the results season drawing ever closer there has been a dramatic increase in the number of profit warnings. Among the latest to acknowledge that imminent figures will fall someway short of expectations are café and restaurant chain Giardino, security system business Screen and sports-related duo Sports Resource and World Sport. All four lost at least 17 per cent on the news and Giardino fared worst of all as management stated that interim profits would be 'slightly less' than last year due to a reduction in customer footfall at the major shopping centres. This caused Giardino's share price to practically halve to 63.5p.

Software survivors

Encouragingly, the announcement of a profit warning did not always result in a share price collapse. Human resources software OneClickHR, for example, turned it into a positive experience, climbing 7p to 35.5p in spite of comments implying that would-be clients have been deferring buying decisions of late. The saving grace for OneClick was that, regardless of this, analysts still expect upcoming figures to December to show steady progress over last year. Moreover, OneClick's board later revealed seven new orders worth in excess of £45,000 apiece.

Fellow software designer Delcam went one better, bouncing back from an October profit warning by revealing that second half figures to March will beat previous expectations. The original warning arrived after a number of customers delayed buying decisions in the wake of 11 September. Luckily for Delcam the anticipated recovery seems to have arrived much earlier than anticipated and house broker Williams de Broe now expects an £850,000 (£1.6 million) profit for the year. This marks a £250,000 improvement on past expectations, yet is still almost £1 million below original hopes. Sadly for Delcam, investors kept their enthusiasm to a minimum and the shares fell 11.5p to 153.5p.

Sweet sound of success

One firm that did successfully generate shareholder interest, rising 130 per cent to the dizzy heights of 1.15p along the way, was Poptones, the independent record label established by music industry svengali Alan McGee. The rise came as McGee and his colleagues signed a letter of intent with Telstar Records that will see the latter provide financial, marketing and administrative support to a number of bands in the Poptones stable. The recent critical and commercial success of one such band, Swedish rock group 'The Hives', has also dramatically increased Poptones' profile. Music events organiser Mean Fiddler, meanwhile, unveiled some good news of its own and rose 5p to 20.5p as a result. The company will both manage the Glastonbury Festival and take a 20 per cent stake in the event.

Bell tolls for RTS and Brooke

As usual, the bad news seemed to be more than a match for the good and the worst was reserved for perennial underachiever RTS NetWorks. Several days after the management admitted that it would need to secure additional funding in 'the very near term', parent company, moneylender and 22 per cent shareholder Robotic Technology Systems pulled the plug. Robotic called in the administrative receivers following the collapse of negotiations with a number of parties aimed at securing the company's future either via a buyout or a fresh tranche of investment.

RTS was not alone either. Just five months after it moved down from the Full List, engineering components manufacturer and distributor Brooke Industrial also called in the receivers. This is because it has failed to secure the necessary support from its bankers.

Newcomers

February proved to be a relatively quiet month for Aim new issues with corporate finance specialist Dipford, business accelerator Galileo Innovation and a brace of biotech stocks ? Cyprotex and NeuTec Pharma ? among those making an entrance.

They will be joined in early March by a pair of Full List converts, namely floor covering distributor James Halstead and former textiles group Leeds. The two firms are due to arrive on Aim on 11 March and 13 March respectively, yet their circumstances could not be more different.

On the one hand there is Halstead, which is hoping to benefit from the market's more relaxed regulatory requirement, and which increased pre-tax profits by 7.5 per cent to £10.7 million in the year to June.

After 101 years in the textiles industry, meanwhile, Leeds is shifting its attention to the more profitable area of equipment leasing. Transferring the company's listing to Aim should ease the disposal of Leeds' remaining textiles operations.