The following is a round-up of updates by London-listed companies, issued on Monday and not separately reported by Alliance News:
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SSE PLC - Perth, Scotland-based electricity provider - Issues €650 million 7-year green bond maturing in August 2029 at a coupon of 2.875%. Notes this is its fifth green bond in six years. Now has total outstanding green bonds over £2.5 billion. Firm believes latest issue ‘reaffirms its status as the largest issuer of green bonds from the UK corporate sector.’ Adds: ‘SSE expects to deliver around a fifth of the UK’s target of 50GW of offshore wind by 2030 as part of plans that could see it invest £25 billion in the UK alone by the end of the decade.’
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Bank of Cyprus Holdings PLC - Strovolos, Cyprus-headquartered financial services firm - Completes ‘voluntary staff exit plan’. ‘The plan is in line with the group’s strategy of further improving efficiency through branch rationalisation and workforce streamlining,’ it says. Says about 550 staff exits have been approved, costing about €99 million. Notes the round of redundancies equals to about 16% of all employees and will result in about €37 million of annual cost savings. Also cuts its number of branches by 20 year-to-date to 60, a reduction of 25%. Has cut number of employees by more than 1,300 since June 2019, a reduction of about 30%, and the size of its branch network by 37 branches, a reduction of about 40%.
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Downing Four VCT - venture capital trust - Net asset value per Ventures share ends March 31 at 68.20 pence, rising from 67.2p at same point year prior. NAV per Healthcare share surges to 84.4p from 68.5p, while NAV per AIM share ends period at 99.9p. Proposing to pay final dividends of 2.75p per Ventures share and 3.5p per Healthcare share.
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Forward Partners Group PLC - London-based investment firm - Makes £1.4 million new investments for its Ventures portfolio. Makes £400,000 investment in ‘serverless’ technology firm Baselime and £1.0 million in Sonrai, an analytics platform that leverages AI to speed up drug and healthcare developments. Chief Executive Nic Brisbourne says: ‘Venture capital is a long term game, and we remain focused on delivering our strategy of building a world class portfolio of early stage applied AI, marketplace, ecommerce and now Web3 companies.’
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CYBA PLC - UK-based cyber security-focused special acquisition company - Says 100%-owned subsidiary Narf Industries LLC signs first commercial contract for its Threat Intelligence for Grid Recovery suite of products. ‘The customer is a large US multi-state Natural Gas Distributor listed on the S&P 200,’ it says. Adds: ‘This contract win opens the TIGR products to a new market, Oil & Gas Distribution. Early market focus for TIGR was with electric grid utilities and support agencies, evidenced by the fact that current ongoing contract discussions are predominantly with electrical grid utilities and the Department of Defence, but the appetite of this gas utility company has resulted in it being the first customer to sign. The contract has potential add-ons as the roll-out develops.’ Notes contract has potential revenue enhancing add-ons built in as the roll-out develops.
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EnSilica PLC - Oxfordshire, England-based semiconductor designer and supplier with design centres in India and Brazil - Wins tender for a significant Application Specific Integrated Circuits supply project for an unnamed European industrial original equipment manufacturer. ‘The award is for the design and supply of an ASIC for industrial and factory automation products and based on projected volumes by the customer, is worth in excess of $30 million over seven years,’ it explains. Chief Executive Ian Lankshear says contract win is a ‘great achievement’.
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Cobra Resources PLC - Wudinna gold project in South Australia - Wins package of exploration tenements in EL 6806 totalling 893 kilometres. ‘EL 6806 complements the company’s existing strategy, with the newly acquired ground considered highly prospective for gold and clay hosted rare earth mineralisation,’ it says. Notes EL 6806 is 100%-owned by its wholly-owned Lady Alice Mines Pty Ltd subsidiary. ‘EL 6806 consolidates Cobra Resources’ position as a major player in the highly prospective Gawler Craton, a tier 1 mining jurisdiction of South Australia. Whilst the southern Gawler Craton has already produced several defined precious metal resources, its extent remains largely under explored, and this creates a massive opportunity for our company,’ Chief Executive Rupert Verco says.
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Victoria Oil & Gas PLC - London-based oil and gas company - Says Arbitral Tribunal of the International Chamber of Commerce issues addendum to its partial final award over the error in the calculation of monies due to VOG subsidiary Gaz du Cameroun. ‘The Tribunal agreed with GDC’s calculations and has now corrected the partial final award by way of an Addendum in favour of GDC, meaning that the earlier payout date entitles RSM Production Corp to a payment of $6.6 million plus interest, rather than the $10.6 million plus interest as was initially announced prior to the correction of the error,’ it says. Previously, the International Chamber of Commerce rules against GDC with regards to claims made by RSM, largely about the dates of royalty payments.
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San Leon Energy PLC - Dublin-based oil & gas exploration company - Says its investee Decklar Resources Inc resumes production from the Oza-1 well at the Oza Oil Field in Nigeria. ‘Decklar and its co-venturer Millenium Oil & Gas Co Ltd have received the permits required to resume production from the Oza-1 well at the Oza Oil Field. Production from the well has begun at low volumes initially to reestablish oil flow, with volumes to be increased steadily in order to establish a long-term sustainable rate,’ it adds.
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Dekel Agri-Vision PLC - West Africa-based agriculture company - Completes oversubscribed final drawdown of about €9.2 million from its €15.2 million seven-year bond facility. It adds: ‘The proceeds of the final bond drawdown will largely be used to refinance existing debt facilities with higher interest rates. We are currently in discussions with these debt providers and we will provide further updates as appropriate in the best interests of the company and its shareholders.’
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Prospex Energy PLC - exploration investment company with core investments in Spain and Italy - Raises £1.9 million from issue of convertible loan notes to existing and new investors. Says funds will go towards its share of development costs for the Selva gas discovery on the Podere Gallina Permit, in the Po Valley in Italy. Holds 37% share of project. Notes it has to pay about £2.3 million for the development costs. Says notes convertible at 4.25 pence per share at any time at the election of the investor. Chief Executive Mark Routh says: ‘Currently we remain on schedule for first gas from the Selva field in Q2 2023, where we predict substantial revenues to be generated from the gas production. The board examined a number of options to finance our 37% stake of Selva and given the challenging market conditions, this was the best alternative at this time.’
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Union Jack Oil PLC - Bath-based UK-focused oil and gas company - Sees $8.0 million in net revenue from Wressle hydrocarbon development in North Lincolnshire from production since August 2021. ‘Since the last production update published during June 2022, another impressive production performance from the Wressle-1 well has been recorded and the trend remains positive,’ Executive Chair David Bramhill says. Egdon Resources PLC has a 30% interest in Wressle. Europa Oil & Gas Holdings PLC also has 30%, and Union Jack has 40%. Notes oil production at Wressle increases by about 45%.
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Nostrum Oil & Gas PLC - Amsterdam-headquartered oil and gas company with operations in Kazakhstan - Notes maturity date of its $725 million 8.0% senior notes on Monday. The 2022 notes, along with the $400 million 7.0% senior notes due February 2025, are currently being restructured. ‘The company will implement the restructuring as soon as practicable following receipt of all necessary authorisations and licences required to hold the scheme meeting in connection with the restructuring. Due to the ongoing restructuring, which includes the previously announced lock-up agreement and forbearance agreement entered into by certain holders of the existing notes, the company does not intend to take any additional further action following the maturity of the 2022 notes,’ the company says.
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Phoenix Global Resources PLC - London-based upstream oil and gas company focused on Argentina - Finishes drilling at pad 2 at Mata Mora, with three wells with vertical sections to depths of 2,314 metres, 2,280 metres and 2,316 metres each with 2,600 metre horizontal lateral lengths sections with 110 frac stages, navigating the Vaca Muerta formation. Starts initial flowback testing. ‘The wells showed oil within the first 24 hours with good wellhead pressure trends with oil production and well behaviour in line with management’s expectations. The company will continue with the flowback process, which includes evaluating how the water cut behaves in each well over time following our drawdown management policy,’ it adds. Starts drilling at Pad 1N.
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