SMALL CAP MOVERS: AIM ends bruising quarter on the up as confidence creeps again

A rollercoaster quarter for AIM, over which the index lost 5 per cent, ended with a flourish, with the small-cap benchmark up 1.4 per cent over the last five trading days as a little confidence was restored to the market.

That said, it underperformed the FTSE 100, which advanced almost 4 per cent over the trading week, pricing in a potential return to normality if Donald Trump follows through with his rhetoric to end the Iran conflict in a matter of weeks.

Up 45 per cent over the week, RC Fornax, the veteran-led defence consultancy, was boosted by a positive trading update on Tuesday in which it reported £1.4 million of new orders and purchase order extensions during March. 

That lifted its revenue visibility for the current financial year to more than £5.1 million.

Cavendish, the company’s corporate broker, maintained its ‘buy’ rating and 50p target price on the stock. That’s a bullish call, given the shares are currently changing hands at 10.5p.

Everyman gets a director vote of confidence

Everyman, the upmarket cinema chain where you can have an Italian bottled beer and charcuterie board delivered to your seat, was near the top of the bill after a 35 per cent jump in its share price.

It followed share purchases by director and ASK Pizza founder Samuel Kaye, which has taken his stake in the business to 8.36 per cent.

Not far behind with a 33 per cent advance was Silver Bullet Data Services, where investor Keith Morris has doubled his stake up to almost 18 per cent.

BRCK Group shares surged 30 per cent after the brick distributor said it had rejected a takeover approach from US private equity firm Atlas Holdings, saying the indicative 65p per share cash offer fundamentally undervalued the business. 

Embattled cinema chain Everyman saw shares rise 35 per cent this week

It remains to be seen whether Atlas will make a second pass for a company whose stock has halved in value since its September 2021 high.

Catenai rose 22 per cent to 0.3p after Alludium, its investee company and developer of a no-code artificial intelligence agent operating system, achieved two internationally recognised information security certifications.

Up 10 per cent, rapid diagnostic tests specialist Abingdon Health was buoyed by the award of a series of significant contracts with a US customer to develop and scale up manufacture of several multiplex quantitative lateral flow assay systems measuring multiple biomarkers simultaneously in human samples.

Mirriad runs out of road

Onto the week’s big losers. Leading the list was Mirriad Advertising, which specialises in the rather niche area of inserting advertising into film, TV and sports content. One suspects it’s an area that AI will trounce without even a sideways glance.

Anyway, this week’s news was less about competition and very much about the financial here and now of the business, which is running short of cash. That set off alarm bells as the stock fell 52 per cent. The damage would have been worse if not for a revival of sorts in the share price on Friday.

Shares in Burford Capital, which finances legal cases, dropped 46 per cent to a six-year low after a US federal appeals court overturned a $16.1 billion judgment against Argentina in the long-running YPF nationalisation case. 

Analysts at Berenberg had estimated the claim was worth around $3 billion to Burford. Argentina’s president Javier Milei celebrated the 2-1 Manhattan court ruling on X.

Litigation Capital Management, which wasn’t involved in the case, was off 31 per cent after what it described as a challenging financial first half. That’s something of an understatement after booking a statutory loss of more than $100 million.

Down 22 per cent over the week, the pain continued for Distil, the premium spirits group, after last week’s warning that full-year revenues would miss market expectations by a material margin and that the business faces an immediate short-term funding need.

Under the radar: a biotech trust worth a look

And finally, International Biotechnology Trust may be flying under the radar for investors looking for a diversified, income-generating route into one of the most dynamic corners of the market. The current discount of 12.5 per cent to its net asset value would suggest so.

Managed by Ailsa Craig and Marek Poszepczynski at Schroders, the trust invests across around 100 quoted and unquoted biotech and life sciences companies, with a focus on oncology, rare diseases and mental health.

It has outperformed the Nasdaq Biotechnology Index with lower volatility over five years, and pays a dividend equivalent to 4 per cent of net asset value annually.

For all the latest small- and mid-cap news, go to www.proactiveinvestors.co.uk