Here we go again, Monday morning, and another busy week in the offing, with many 31 Dec trading statements likely. I'm pleased to say my DryAthlon is going well, haven't touched a drop of booze since 29 Dec. Better still, the donations for Cancer Research (almost all from readers here!) have already hit 155% of target - awesome! Thank you to everyone who has donated, it's much appreciated.
Sarantel Group (LON:SLG) has finally run out of investor appetite for repeated fund-raisings, and has put itself up for sale, having just reported on another year (ended 30 Sep 2012) where it burned around £2m in cash losses.
Pity, as I always thought their product (high performance, small antennae for high end mobile devices) has great promise, but as is often the case with new technology it takes longer & costs far more to commercialise things than originally planned.
From today's RNS it looks like a sale process is well advanced, and is likely to pay out roughly the current mkt cap - so if it succeeds, then it will be a lucky escape for shareholders I think. If I held the shares (which I don't), I'd head for the exit now, as there seems little if any upside, and considerable downside risk.
A very interesting trading update has been issued by Porta Communications (PTCM), with trading "ahead of management expectations", with, "an exceptional end to the year". It seems to be a small advertising & PR group, which invests in start-ups, rather than buying existing businesses. Interesting strategy, and probably sensible given that it's a sector which is all about people & contacts.
Whilst they say that annualised revenues are now running at £16m, and all companies in the group expected to be profitable in 2013, the level of profit is not quantified, either in this trading statement, or in broker notes (since there don't seem to be any broker notes).
I can't just make a leap in the dark with no forecasts, so unless & until they commission some research and issue it to the market, then the shares can't possibly go into my portfolio. Pity, as I like the look of it.
Bioquell (BQE) is one that got away - it came…
