ASX small cap winners Nov 19-23

Here’s a few of the big winners over the past week.

US energy company Eon NRG had a brilliant Thursday, with its shares rising 400 per cent after the company said monthly revenue shot up.

Sales revenue for October hit $US660,000 ($929,000).

In the last quarter oil and gas sales revenue totalled $US1.2m, or about $US406,000 a month.

The stock (ASX:E2E) leapt to 3c from 0.6c yesterday.

About a third of the sales were from natural gas and the remainder was oil and gas condensates — a heavier form of gas that condenses into liquid form.

Australia-based company secretary Simon Adams told Stockhead the boost came partly from the higher oil price — they averaged $US69 a barrel — the fact that they had some stock left over from September to sell, and a slow increase in production over the last six months.

One-time Liberal candidate Dave Sharma was happy on Wednesday, when Shekel Brainweigh launched itself into the Australian public company sphere with a 14 per cent stag profit.

The company issued stock at 35c in the IPO but lifted to 40c at its debut on Tuesday afternoon.

The Israeli maker of uber-weighing devices (ASX:SBW) had to delay its original ASX launch date from late October in order to win over more investors.

The company’s corporate advisor said “a number of significant fund managers” had told them they needed more time to commit.

It’s a tough market for small caps to raise money in right now.

Several fund managers and advisors have told Stockhead there is little money available in Australia right now for small caps.

Retailer Baby Bunting (ASX:BBN) bucked the sombre retail environment, jumping 22 per cent on Monday on an improved sales outlook.

The retailer said EBITDA earnings for the year would be in the range of $25 million to $27 million.

That was up slightly on a forecast of $24 million to $27 million issued in August.

Total sales were up 17 per cent to November 15 — a slight bump on the 16.5 per cent figure reported after six weeks.

Comparable sales performance was running at 9.6 per cent to November 15 — down slightly on the 9.8 per cent announced in August.

And shares in telco Inabox Group (ASX:IAB) hit their highest point in nearly 18 months this week, with news telco MNF Group had upped a takeover offer for Inabox by $1 million in order to beat a rival bid lobbed last week.

MNF Group (ASX:MNF) first launched an offer between $30.5 million and $33.5m to acquire Inabox’s wholesale and enablement businesses back in early October. After various conditions were met, the offer worked out at about 80c a share for investors.

But last week fellow telco SB&G Group launched a rival all-cash $21.4 million bid for the company, or 90c a share.

SB&G immediately bought up 19.9 per cent of Inabox and said its offer was more attractive thanks to its simplicity: it is an all-cash offer to directly acquire all shares from existing Inabox shareholders, rather than MNF’s conditional offer.

But this morning MNF increased its offer to $34.5m in cash for Inabox’s subsidiaries.

 

ASX small cap losers Nov 19-23

On the other side of the ledger, cannabis investor MMJ Group has begun its first proper day of trading after a six-week holiday from the bourse on Thursday, with shares in the company falling 21 per cent the moment the market opened.

MMJ Group (ASX:MMJ) owns minority stakes in 10 businesses, and has been in trading suspension since October 5 as it transitioned from medical cannabis company MMJ Phytotech to cannabis investment company MMJ Group.

MMJ shares fell from its October 4 close of 33c to 26c when the market opened this morning.

Yesterday, the company’s shares accidentally spent a couple of hours trading thanks to an ASX error; they dropped 30 per cent to 23c, but the trades were cancelled and the order book purged.

MMJ Group had told investors on Tuesday that it would recommence trading on Thursday, November 22.

The ASX released a note saying MMJ’s shares were “reinstated to the official quotation today in error”.

An ASX spokesman told Stockhead this morning that “it was an ASX Operations error. The stock was reinstated to trading 24 hours before it should have been”.

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