The PLUS stock exchange’s primary market has seen an increase in activity and interest in the first quarter of the year, particularly in the month of March.
New PLUS companies- four new companies were admitted in the first quarter of the year, three of which joined the market in March:
- US Oil & Gas plc (market cap: £2.13m), an oil exploration company.
- Global Brand Licensing (market cap: £22.86m), licenses and manufactures clothing and fashion accessories.
- BWA Group (market cap: £0.79m), a vehicle established to make investments in trading companies primarily within the UK.
- Climate Human Capital (market cap: £1.66m), an executive search company.
- new applicants seeking to join the PLUS market have also increased, with a total of nine submissions received in Q1, four of these in March, including:
- Bioventix plc*, a biotechnology firm focused on the development and commercial supply of high-affinity monoclonal antibodies with a primary focus on their application in clinical diagnostics, such as in automated immunoassays used in blood testing.
- Japanese Turnaround Capital**, an investment company specialising in acquiring Consumer Loan Portfolios from consumer finance companies ("CFCs") in Japan.
- in the first three months of the year PLUS companies continued to use their quotations to raise almost £5,000,000 of capital, including:
- Climate Human Capital, new company in March, raised over £750,000
- Global Brands Licensing, also admitted in March, raised over £1,000,000
- Webb Capital, the PLUS Markets quoted financial services group raised £716,000 in a private placing
- Lotus Resources, raised £650,000 also in a placing
- March also saw corporate activity by the following companies:
- Abraxus Investment announced a proposed acquisition of S. C. Bridgeconstruct S.R.L., a company based in Romania which has secured the rights to develop a windfarm.
- Technis International confirmed that it is in negotiations with Professional IT (Logistics) Limited ("Prof IT") and Controlled Thought Limited ("CTL"). The negotiations with Prof IT and CTL are in addition to those with Case Communications Limited ("Case Comms"), as announced on 8 March 2010.
- Datum International Limited, the software company specialising in the development, supply, implementation and support of their Enterprise Content Management ("ECM") Solution KnowledgeWorker®, announced that it has raised £1,003,000 and acquired, conditional on payment of the consideration, Root3 Limited ("Root3"), a Bristol based document capture business.
- PLUS welcomed Cairn Financial Associates as a new Corporate Adviser in January and is working with other advisers in the pipeline.
Since the start of the year, PLUS has undertaken a number of initiatives to further enhance the visibility and profile of its companies and to showcase the investment opportunities on the exchange. These include the publication of a half-yearly review of PLUS companies, which was published in February in conjunction with Edison Investment Research; a series of retail road shows around the UK, in conjunction with leading private client broking firms, to commence in April; and, a partnership with MoneyAM, one of the UK’s leading online financial service providers, to broaden the reach of trading data and company news from the PLUS market.
Paul Haddock, Head of Capital Markets at the PLUS stock exchange, notes: “During the first quarter of the year there has been some notable IPO activity among larger companies in the capital markets, and we are now seeing a similar level of activity among our smaller companies as confidence returns. Our efforts to broaden the reach of our exchange and profile some of the excellent investment opportunities available on PLUS are paying dividends. We are very pleased to see a considerable pick-up in applications and interest in our primary markets as we head into spring.”
* http://www.plusmarketsgroup.com/PLUS_applicant.shtml?ISIN=NEWISSUE06/PLPR
** http://www.plusmarketsgroup.com/PLUS_applicant.shtml?ISIN=NEWISSUE07/PLPR