SMALL CAP MOVERS: XLMedia; Quiz

Investors took a punt on XLMedia as the company said its North American sports business is trading strongly.

The global digital performance publisher and data miner said in trading statement revenues for 2021 clocked in at $66.5million, up from $54.8million and in line with guidance issued at the beginning of February.

The sports vertical generated revenues of $31.4million, up from $11.3million the year before, more than offsetting a decline from the European Casino assets, where revenues slid to $23.2million from $31.7million.

The shares surged 41 per cent to 39.25p, probably bringing a smile to the digital publishing veteran Marcus Rich, who was announced this week as XLMedia’s new chair.

Rich has previously held executive and non-executive roles in the media sector, working for companies such as Daily Mail & General Trust and EMAP (East Midland Allied Press, as was).

Sector peer Mirriad Advertising, which specialises in placing unobtrusive ads within media such as computer games or TV shows, saw its value increase by roughly a third after it released a white paper on how to win back lost audiences.

The paper noted a shift in the key 18-49 age group. Their participation in linear TV – viewing with ad breaks – has dropped 49 per cent in the last five years and is expected to decline 22 per cent in the next two.

Unsurprisingly, Mirriad says it has a solution to this problem.

Chariot advanced 37 per cent to 17.425p after it upgraded its view of its discovery off the coast of Morocco with analysis of the Anchois-2 well pointing to a 50 per cent rise in net pay to 150 metres, compared to 100 metres in the recent initial analysis and 55 metres in Anchois-1.

Keras Resources shot up 150 per cent this week as it took full control of the Diamond Creek organic phosphate lease and mine, enabling production to recommence.

The company acquired the 49 per cent minority interest in Falcon Isle, which owns the mine and the Spanish Fork processing facility in Utah, from the Helda Living Trust for $3.2million.

Concluding this agreement has ensured that the company avoids a lengthy and costly litigation process in the United States and allows Falcon Isle to recommence operations to meet demand in the key spring season, Keras said.

Avacta Group jumped 41 per cent after it said it would present pre-clinical data on its AVA6000 prospect at the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting.

AVA6000 is a FAP (fibroblast activation protein α) activated doxorubicin therapeutic that uses Avacta’s pre|CISION platform to improve the safety and therapeutic index of doxorubicin – a chemotherapy medication used to treat cancer.

Cambridge Cognition Holdings, which develops and markets digital solutions to assess brain health, had a good week, rising by two-fifths on the back of a contract win.

The contract, worth just over £1million, is with an unnamed top 10 pharmaceutical company to provide digital cognitive assessments for a pivotal phase III autoimmune disease trial.

Here is a quiz question for you. Which company saw its shares climb 34 per cent to 14.725p this week?

If you answered Quiz, score a point. Score two points if you knew it was because the fashion firm reported a continuation of strong trading momentum, prompting it to raise full-year revenue guidance.

On the day when the new energy tariffs came into effect in the UK, tidal power company SIMEC Atlantis Energy said it had secured a non-convertible loan of £2.5million from Scottish Enterprise, which will enable the redeployment of the remaining two turbines at the MeyGen site within the next 12 months.

It was an immensely disappointing week for 88 Energy, which lost more than half of its value after a disappointing result at the Merlin-2 well in Alaska.

The company failed to obtain fluid samples from the Merlin-2 well and provisional analysis of wireline logging has indicated that reservoir quality at this location is insufficient to warrant a production test.

Elsewhere in the resources sector, Beowulf Mining lost two-fifths of its value after it said it had invested a million quid in Vardar Minerals to finance the start of drilling at Wolf-Mountain in Kosovo.

The investment increases Beowulf’s ownership in Vardar from 51.4 per cent to around 59.5 per cent.

BlueRock Diamonds took advantage of recent share price strength to tap the market for funds.

The company, which owns and operates the Kareevlei diamond mine in the Kimberley region of South Africa, raised £2/1m through a placing of shares at 35p a pop – the price at which the shares are now trading.