600 Group (LON:SIXH) (SIXH, 17p, £9.73m) has announced the acquisition of a machine tool manufacturing facility in Poland for €1m with €0.5m on approval by the Polish courts, €0.25m by Feb 2011 and €0.25m by July 2011. The assets being acquired have an aggregate value of €1m and the facility employs 195 employees. The move will the group able to reduce working capital as well as adding additional manufacturing capability plus being closer to Central & Eastern Europe which it sees as an important market in the future. Combined with the late September AGM statement that highlighted how order book was up 29% year on year but working capital availability had limited first half sales growth (solved with the August financing agreement) we see this as a very positive move. David Norman, CEO, has been executing a restructuring and we see this as one underlining a further improvement in the outlook. We move from a hold to a BUY with a modest 24p price target – well below the Price to sales of the sector.

Avacta Group Plc (LON:AVCT) (AVCT, 0.865p, £11.13m), the provider of innovative, high value proprietary technologies and services to the pharmaceutical and diagnostics markets, reports prelims to 31 July 2010.Revenues increased by 120% to £2.07m (2009: £0.94m) driven by core contract service division 74% growth to £1.64m. The group has made good progress with the First Optim units despatched, Midas diagnostic tools set to be launch and the new acute phase protein diagnostic kit in development with a global commercial partner. Adjusted losses reduced to £1.5m (2009: £1.8m) and net cash stood at £1.4m (2009: £0.9m). Following years of product development, the group is now in a position to commercial its product portfolio to generate revenue and profit growth. There are no forecasts in the market, but we believe this year could be a transitional period for the group. In our view, new orders will act as a share price catalyst. We reiterate our SPECULATIVE BUY recommendation.

Dods Group (LON:DODS) (DODS, 6.875p, £10.46m) Following the termination of the takeover talks the group has declared an interim DPS of 0.25p – or the equivalent of 3.6% yield on the interim alone. We have maintained the group as a SPECULATIVE…

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