Small caps round-up: Brainspark, Top Level Domain Holdings, Globo

The management of Brainspark, the AIM-listed investment company, has sought to reassure investors nothing is wrong after its share price fell over 30% in the last month. The company's directors said they knew of no reason for the decline. They added that day to day operations continued as normal and the company had sufficient cash in the bank to fund operations until the conclusion of its delayed Mediapolis / Sorgente land sale. The firm added that it would only raise new capital through shares to invest in new companies for its portfolio. The statement buoyed the market, with shares rising 5% in early trading.

The International Rugby Board (IRB) has announced that it is applying to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to acquire the .RUGBY Internet domain. The IRB has employed Top Level Domain Holdings, which focuses on acquiring and operating new generic top-level domains, to help it secure the suffix. The application follows ICANN's decision to expand the availability of domain names to the public sector beyond the current portfolio of 22 domains (including .com, .net and .org) to include almost any word.

Globo, the mobile telecoms and software firm, said it had raised £9.63m before expenses via a placing of shares with both current and new institutional investors. The firm said it would use the money for general working capital support as well as investing some of it in expanding its mobile products in the UK and US. Globo only just completed a £17.25m share placing in February, but investors gave the news a thumbs up, with shares rising 3% in early trading.

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Surgical Innovations Group, which designs and manufactures products for minimally invasive surgery, saw revenues and profits rise in 2011 in line with analysts' expectations. Revenue increased 7.9% to £7.6m while pre-tax profits were up 10% to £1.7m. The firm said it would pay no dividend. It added that trading in the period since the year end had been encouraging and was in line with current expectations for the first quarter.

Stockbroker Panmure Gordon saw its share price plunge 9% in early trading on Tuesday after it announced a loss of £31.47m in 2011. The firm was hammered by the global financial crisis and was haemorrhaging money at its US business, ThinkEquity. Since the end of the year agreement was reached for a management buy-out of the US division. The firm said "market conditions have changed beyond all recognition" since it bought ThinkEquity in 2007.

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