SMALL CAP MOVERS: 4Global boosted by Qatar World Cup

As the sporting world’s attention descends on Qatar for the 2022 World Cup, 4Global’s datahub offering is finding favour among the kingdom’s fledgling football clubs and venues.

Shares in the data group increased by 6.7 per cent to 62.5p over the past five days as it announced a couple of meaty Middle East contracts.

Officially, the World Cup wasn’t named but a £200,000 award was described as being for the ‘host nation of the upcoming major football sporting event scheduled to take place in late-November and conclude in mid-December’.

4Global is in the data business. Sports data, to be precise and how to use it to make the most of big sporting events.

The AIM-quoted company’s team of scientists and statisticians provides a technology stack comprising a range of tools and dashboards.

Billions of data points come together to provide actionable insights to a client base of governments, cities, federations, and private and public activity providers of how people’s activity habits change after a big event.

4Global has expanded its reach in recent months through a commercial partnership with EuropeActive but this week was about the Middle East.

In addition to the £200,000 win, 4Global was awarded a £4million project over five years with a major sporting infrastructure project for an unnamed city also in the region.

‘This is a significant contract win for the company, representing one of the largest initial wins in our history and providing valuable foundations to our plans over the next few years,’ said Eloy Mazon, chief executive.

AIM, meanwhile, had a mixed week. The junior market’s All-Share Index jumped on Tuesday but corrected in the latter half of the week only to rally Friday.

On Friday it was up 0.5 per cent at 813.7 compared to a 1.3 per cent rise for the main market’s All-Share index.

Atlantic Lithium was another riser as its Ewoyaa lithium project in Ghana keeps impressing.

Latest drilling unearthed the highest metal grades yet as it filled in the gaps on its main deposit, while intercepts from new exploratory holes further away were also described as encouraging.

Shares rose 20 per cent on the news, making it a 66 per cent rise this year while broker Liberum repeated its buy rating and 46p target, which was quickly exceeded with the price now 47.4p

Oil and gas company Jadestone Energy rallied 14 per cent to 78p following a US$20million acquisition of the North West Shelf off the coast of Western Australia from BP.

Libertine Holdings meanwhile recovered following a hefty dip on Monday’s trading session.

A trading update on Thursday noted that the engineering services company delivered £600,000 of commercial revenues in the first half of its current year.

Libertine has also entered into a partnership with an Italian engine developer to create downsized, power-dense Linear Generator products using renewable fuels. Shares ended the week even Steven at about 15p.

Longboat Energy was one of the flounderers as the North Sea-focused oil business suffered a 40 per cent blow to its market value.

Investors were not wowed with the results of testing at the Oswig condensate discovery off the Norwegian coast.

In a pragmatic statement, chief executive Helge Hammer said: ‘Longboat is pleased to have made a discovery at the Oswig well, albeit at the lower end of pre-drill expectations.’

Enwell Energy, another AIM-quoted oil and gas group, saw its shares drop on Friday after being dealt another adverse ruling in Ukrainian legal proceedings in respect of its Svystunivsko-Chervonolutskyi (SC) exploration licence.

In trading on Friday, Enwell Energy shares were 13 per cent lower at 22.7p and 19 per cent down across the week.