Small caps round-up: Byotrol, sareum, KDD ...

Byotrol, an anti-microbial hygiene company, has continued to make progress and has maintained the momentum seen in the second half of last year into the current financial year. The balance sheet continues to remain strong and is well positioned to its objective of positive cash generation at the earliest opportunity. The negotiations with its Fortune 150 customer are on track to deliver a full commercial agreement on time, while the product launches in conjunction with Rentokil Initial have been successful and the resulting order flow 'encouraging'.

sareum, a specialist cancer drug discovery business, has said its financial results for the year ended June 30th will be broadly in line with market expectations, with the loss after tax for the year set to be around £0.64m. The firm said it and its collaborators continue to progress several commercial opportunities with its research programmes, with at least one of these deals will be concluded before the calendar year-end.

Real estate investment group KDD has said it expects to received AMC approval - the only outstanding condition - by August 2nd for the sale of Sky Towers to Cimbrorum.

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Probability, a mobile gambling specialist, has agreed to acquire the entire issued share capital of Playyoo, a private company in Lugano, Switzerland, for an initial consideration of around £1.8m, satisfied by 2.4m shares in the company and a further 1.7m shares depending on the performance of Playyoo in 2013. The firm reported a loss before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation of £0.127m in the year ended December 31st. It will be acquired free of debt.

blinkx has promoted Chief Operating Officer Subhransu Mukherjee to the role Chief Executive Officer with immediate effect, and the now former CEO, Suranga Chandratillake, has put himself in the role of President and Chief Strategy Officer. The changes were Chandratillake's idea. Chandratillake, who is also a founder of the company, will be responsible for advancing the company's technology and product vision, and exploring new opportunities for growth.

zamano, a mobile telecommunications company, has reported a solid performance in the first half of 2012 as it continues to benefit from the launch of a web and mobile service in the UK during the final quarter of 2011. The improved performance is expected to generate positive levels of operating cash to year end. Overall, the group is performing in line with expectations and is delivering on its objective to capitalise on its core technology and operational competencies. However, the firm warned that the outcome of the Comreg case and the current judicial review will determine the future of its SMS business in Ireland.

Recruitment company Networkers International said it performed "very well" in the first half of 2012, with the gross margin for the six months set to increase around 17% year-on-year. Cash generation during the six-month period has also been strong with net debt expected to reduce by £2.8m to around £6.2m at the half year point.

Serviced Office Group, a provider of office space and IT solutions, has been awarded a significant contract by Costain to cover its IT infrastructure requirements in connection with its work at London Bridge Station as part of the Thameslink upgrade programme. A key feature of the contract will be its focus on identifying environmentally-friendly solutions to Costain's IT requirements.

Redhall Group, a specialist engineering support services group, has been awarded term contracts for Redhall Engineering and Redhall Nuclear. The first is to provide integrated multi-discipline engineering services to Polimeri Europa UK, estimated to have a value of £8.0m over a three year period. The second is for a three year multi-discipline framework agreement to provide support services across National Nuclear Laboratory nationally.

A subsidiary of Rugby Estates has accepted an offer of 7p per share for its holding on 7.9m shares in O Twelve Estates. Under a separate agreement, either party can terminate the agreement on at least six months' written notice at any time.

Seeing Machines, the maker of equipment that tracks the facial movements of drivers to make sure they are awake, has revealed that a South African distributor, Booyco Electronics has ordered a further 50 DSS units to enable it to quickly fulfil anticipated customer orders. Booyco has in the last six weeks delivered the two largest orders from Seeing Machine's distributors to date. These units will re-sell for a total of more than $0.5m, with Seeing Machines receiving the bulk of this upfront.

Hardide, which provides metal surface engineering technology, has appointed Philip Kirkham as its new Chief Executive Officer with effect from September 1st 2012. He is a seasoned CEO with substantial international experience and a strong background in marketing, sales and production in the metal processing sector, the firm said. Between 2008 and 2009, he was CEO of private equity backed Material Advantage Group and since then he has been the CEO of a company operating in the industrial lighting industry.

Walker Greenbank, a luxury interior furnishings group, has reported that its US business has won a $0.156m order to supply a substantial quantity of fabric to the Moody Gardens Hotel in Galveston, Texas. The order amounts to about 7.8km of a Sanderson-designed fabric in colourways developed specifically for the Moody Gardens Hotel's bedrooms and bathrooms.

Hightex, a leading systems engineering company, has announced its wholly owned subsidiary, SolarNext, has won a significant contract to supply and install a thermal cooling system in an industrial production unit for a company based in Thuringia, Germany. The cooling system is the largest unit to be supplied by SolarNext to date. Its contract value is in excess of 0.25m euro, with all revenues expected to be received in the second half of 2012. The value of this one contract is close to the aggregate value of sales within Solarnext achieved in the whole of 2011.

BrainJuicer, an international online market research agency, has delivered continued sales growth during the first half, with overall revenue some 13% ahead of the comparable 2011 period. Growth was seen in the US, Switzerland, China and Brazil, while revenues declined in Germany and the Netherlands and was broadly flat in the UK. "Overall, our percentage of revenue from our more innovative 'Juicy' products increased from 53% in H1 2011 to 66% in H1 2012," the firm said, adding that it believes it is on track to meet market profit expectations for 2012 as a whole.

Advanced cleantech materials company Ilika posted a 30% rise in revenues to £2.01m (2011: £1.54m), gross profit of £0.82m, up 35% from £0.61m, loss before tax of £2.84m (2011: £3.15m) and loss per share of 0.07p (2011: 0.08p), for the year ended April 30th. "As we move into the new financial year we are confident that we've firmly established a strong base to continue to grow the business. We have a strong IP portfolio and a number of joint development agreements with major partners that continue to make good progress," the firm said. At the period end the group's cash position was £5.3m (2011: £2.8m).

Petards, an AIM quoted developer of advanced security and surveillance systems, has secured a multi-million pound contract to supply Petards eyeTrain on-board digital CCTV systems. The order, worth in the region of £8.0m. Initial equipment deliveries are expected to commence later this year and to be completed by 2017. The highest proportion of equipment deliveries are scheduled to take place from 2014 onwards.

Biome Technologies, a bioplastics business, said total revenue in the first half of 2012 was down £7.5m, 28% lower than the same period the previous year, pushed into decline by a downturn in sales within the Bioplastics Division following legislative changes in Italy and wider disruption to the supply and demand balance in Europe. In the second quarter group revenues were £2.9m, 38% below the revenues of £4.6m achieved in the first quarter. The Stanelco RF Technologies Division continues to perform as expected with revenues of £0.7m in the second quarter, up 95% compared to the first quarter (Q2 2011: £0.9m). The Bioplastics Division saw revenues drop from £4.3m in the first quarter to £2.2m in the second quarter (Q2 2011: £3.9m). The group's cash position at June 30th was £1.1m (April 30th: £1.5m).

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