The following is a round-up of updates by London-listed companies, issued on Tuesday and not separately reported by Alliance News:
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Accrol Group Holdings PLC - Blackburn, England-based private-label toilet roll maker - Decides to proceed with building a sustainable paper mill, following a strategic review conducted with help from professional services network Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Ltd. The mill will focus on core toilet and kitchen towel, grow facial tissues and wet wipes businesses, which can deliver £250 million plus revenue. The new paper mill will be operational by mid-2025, cost no more than £10 million, and will reduce volatility in tissue input costs for the tissue conversion business. Meanwhile, posting half-year results, Accrol says it aims to resume dividend payments ‘as soon as practicable’. The company will request shareholder authority to buy back shares. In the first half-year to October 31, pretax loss narrows to £900,000 from £3.5 million a year prior. Revenue however jumps 64% to £121.1 million from £73.7 million. Adjusted earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rise 42% to £7.1 million from £5.0m. Accrol says it is on track for annual revenue and adjusted Ebitda marginally ahead of expectations, for the financial year to April 30. Previously had expected revenue for financial year 2023 at £230 million, up 44% from £159.5 million a year prior, and an adjusted Ebitda of £15.5 million, rising by 70% from £9.1 million.
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Aptitude Software Group PLC - London-based finance transformation and automation software - Appoints Finance Director Mike Johns as acting chief financial officer from Tuesday as CFO & Deputy Chief Executive Officer Philip Wood will retire from the board in July, the latter role which Wood will keep until then. Meanwhile, Aptitude says 2022 was in line with market expectations as annual recurring revenue grows 15% to £51.6 million from £45.0 million in 2021. Cash as at December 31 is virtually flat at £29.2 million compared to 29.1 million a year ago. Net funds decrease slightly to £15.9 million from £16.1 million. The company is confident that its digital finance platform Fynapse will speed up growth, noting that in 2022 Microsoft Corp signed a multi-year global partnership agreement to ‘deeply’ integrate Fynapse with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance.
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City Pub Group PLC - London-based pub operator - Notes that sales are ahead of pre-virus levels over the festive period, as enough punters still went to pubs for the duo to weather the UK train strikes and benefit from the football World Cup. Like-for-like sales rise 7.8% in its fourth quarter ended December 25. Growth is due to ‘improved planning’ to take advantage of sales-boosting events such as the run-up to Christmas and the World Cup.‘ The performance would have been even better, had it not been for the rail strikes, especially those towards the end of the year, where we estimate lost revenue to be in the region £750,000,’ City Pub adds. ‘Whilst the comparative period in 2022 was impacted by Omicron, trading in the first 4 weeks of 2023 has begun well with LFL sales against 2022 up 25% and above expectations.’ Meanwhile, Chief Operating Officer Toby Smith will step down on Friday. Managing Director Rupert Clark, already on the board, takes over. City Pub says 40% of its energy costs are hedged from April 2023 and March 2025. Company says it lost £750,000 in revenue due to the industrial action.
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Netcall PLC - Bedford-based customer engagement software provider - In the half-year to December 31, revenue grows 19% to £17.5 million from £14.7 million a year prior. Adjusted Ebitda climbs to 29% to £4.4 million from £3.4 million. The company says its main growth driver is its cloud offerings which increase by 58% annually. Chief Executive Officer Henrik Bang says: ‘We continued to see solid demand for our Intelligent Automation and Customer Engagement offerings, in particular for cloud-based solutions, including an increase in new customer wins. This has resulted in accelerated double-digit revenue and profitability growth underpinned by a significant increase in recurring revenue.’ Netcall expects to release its half-year results on March 8.
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Roquefort Therapeutics PLC - London-based biotech company, developing first-in-class drugs in the oncology segment prior to partnering or selling to larger pharmaceutical firms - Announces in vivo safety shown by antibodies for the treatment of metastatic breast and metastatic lung cancer. Further, notes pre-clinical milestones passed by ROQ-A1 and ROQ-A2 Midkine antibody programmes, which target the two cancer types. ‘Both MDK antibody programs will now progress into in vivo pre-clinical efficacy studies to assess cancer killing ability in primary and metastatic breast cancer and lung cancer. The company will update the market on the results of these efficacy studies as they progress,’ Roquefort says.
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