Smaller companies report: Friday close

By This Is Money
Updated: 13:02 EDT, 17 March 2006

SHARES in UK smaller companies closed generally higher, with Poly Information rising on disposal news and Henderson Morley surging on a possible licence agreement. The FTSE SmallCap index was 12.8 points higher at 3,604.7, while the FTSE 100 finished 6.2 points better at 5,999.4.

Poly Information jumped 0.15p to 0.25p after saying it is selling its Israeli subsidiary, Poly Information, to CB Phone.

Henderson Morley rallied 0.715p at 1.91p following yesterday's confirmation the company is close to agreement with a potential partner to license certain applications of its Ionic Contra Viral Therapy technology.

Acquisition news provided the spur to PipeHawk, 3.75p higher at 27.675p. The company has snapped up QM Systems for £747,500 in shares. Pipehawk plans to use QM's technology to help it develop a landmine detection vehicle.

Specialist Lloyd's insurer Chaucer Holdings rose 2.75p to 70.25p after reporting full-year profits of £11.9m against £33m, despite record hurricane-related losses of £68.5m .The final dividend is 2.05p.

Central African Mining & Exploration firmed 2½p to 47½p after the company revealed February sales from its 75%-owned Congo resources joint venture.

Marketing services group P&MM picked up 3½p, at 103½p, as it revealed a maiden dividend of 0.75p per share on the back of a 30% increase in full-year pretax profits to £2.03m .

A positive technical update sent ITM Power 14p higher to 224p, while EnCore Oil picked up 1½p at 34¼p, following the signing of a production sharing agreement for the Laguera licence located offshore Western Sahara.

Among the new issues, Betcorp, a broadly-based online gaming group, closed at 271½p with 46,327 shares traded, while Invocas Group, a provider of personal and corporate debt solutions in Scotland, closed trading at 147p in volume of 2,238,263m shares, compared with a placing price of 111p.

A solid premium was also attained by New Media Lottery Services, a provider of white label new media lottery game solutions to charities and other lottery licence holders outside of the US. Placed at 50p, the shares were marked up to 60.5p by the close with 476,499 shares traded.

On the downside, House of Fraser shares were on the back foot, sliding 13p to 115p after the UK department store chain disclosed that preliminary talks regarding a possible offer are off.

The company also updated on trading, saying that like-for-like sales were down 1.4% in the six weeks since January 29 compared with the same period last year, while total sales were 16.2% up, including the Beatties and Jenners acquisitions.

The company continues to expect trading conditions to be difficult for at least the first half of 2006 and, in spite of continuing focus on costs, it reiterated that it expects some additional cost pressures in the next 12 months.