ASX Quarterly Wrap: Spenda hits 14 quarters of growth on the trot, Victory advances North Stanmore

It’s the quarterly season again as the ASX market announcements page becomes increasingly flooded with update lodgements.

To save you the trouble of trudging through it all, we’ve wrapped up the highlights from some of the reports that caught our eye.

Spenda (ASX:SPX)

Transaction services business Spenda has enjoyed another robust quarter of growth, marking a milestone of 14 consecutive quarters of sustained growth.

Cash receipts from customers in the June 2023 quarter rose about 50% from the previous quarter – 75% from the previous corresponding quarter – to $1.2m.

This is due to a 68% increase in loan facility since its inception with the company’s lending service peaking at $13.4m and maintaining an overall portfolio yield of 21.06% for the 2023 financial year as well as a 100% increase in payments volume to $44.9m from the previous quarter, allowing it to achieve the milestone of processing its first $100m in payments.

Spenda noted that average transaction values also increased by 140% while customer growth was up 8%, an upward trend that is expected to continue.

The company is also maintaining and expanding its reach, signing an extension to its existing relationship with the Capricorn Society into eCommerce through the delivery of a Digital Service Delivery (DSD) initiative whilst completing the roll-out of Spenda Services to the Carpet Court network and reaching a five-year exclusive agreement to offer lending services.

The latter is hugely significant as each one of Carpet Court network of 205 franchised stores could potentially deliver revenue of up to $30,000 per annum.

It is also in line with its Node-to-Spoke execution strategy where Nodes are the hub that bring people or businesses together (the Spokes) with Spenda offering a unique blend of services and connects businesses in an interconnected digital network to unlock new levels of reach and scale.

The company is also continuing to develop its partnership with Fresh Supply Co. to establish a strong presence in the Agricultural sector and associated networks, including primary producers, grain traders and farm input suppliers.

Managing director Adrian Floate said that 2023 was a “year of great success” with the company delivering many public and private triumphs.

“We have delivered 40% revenue growth and have started to scale payments processing aggressively,” he added.

“The ability for us to build on where we are and start the 2024 financial year from a place of strength fills me with confidence that goals we haven’t yet achieved, are only just around the corner.

“After three and a half years of consecutive quarter on quarter growth we find ourselves in substantially better position than we were 12 months earlier.”

During the June quarter, the company’s development team has focused on enhancing and expanding core services, optimising its infrastructure and implementing strategies to o handle higher loads and to maintain system stability.

They also focused on making the Spenda platform more efficient and user friendly whilst strengthening security measures and ensuring compliance with industry regulations.

Victory Metals (ASX:VTM)

On the resources front, Victory Metals has been advancing its North Stanmore rare earth elements project near Cue, Western Australia, during the June 2023 quarter.

Reverse circulation drilling assays has been combined with aircore assays to confirm an average grade of 987 parts per million (ppm) total rare earth oxides (TREO) from 219 holes spread across a 34km2 area, which remains open in all direction.

Additionally, metallurgical test work has demonstrated recoveries of up to 78% neodymium, 76% praseodymium, 79% dysprosium and 80% terbium, improving on initial test work using weak low-cost combined ammonia sulphate and weak sulphuric acid that recovered up to 63.6% lutetium, 60% dysprosium and 58% terbium.

To top it off, metallurgical beneficiation test work shows that clays from North Stanmore are highly amenable to upstream beneficiation resulting in an increase in REE grades by up to 148%, which has the potential to significantly reduce downstream processing costs and capital costs per product tonne.

Given these successes, the company was quick to pickup tenements E20/971, P20/2345 and P20/2346, extending the exploration area at North Stanmore up to 118.5km2.

It is also well funded to further progress the project after raising $3m through an oversubscribed placement.

Prospech (ASX:PRS)

During the June 2023 quarter, Prospech secured exclusivity to earn a 100% interest in the Korsnäs and Jokikangas REE as well as Saarenkylä lithium projects in Finland.

Historical drilling at Korsnäs confirmed expanded zones of REE mineralisation with hole KR-289 returning an 18.3m intercept grading 13,201ppm TREO from 51.7m.

Notably, mineralisation at the project appears to have a high level of neodymium and praseodymium enrichment with an average 26% NdPr content in the six sampled holes.

Further Korsnäs drill core is available for logging and sampling.

The company has also secured additional data from the GTK Outokumpu archive that will be used to complete the historical database once it is compiled.

In Slovakia, Prospech has started diamond drilling at its Kolba project where rock chip sampling had returned high-grade results of up to 4.5% copper, 1,785ppm cobalt and 796g/t silver.

The company has also uncovered recent evidence of stratabound mineralisation unrelated to veins, which has positive implications for continuity of mineralisation.

At Stockhead we tell it like it is. While Victory Metals is a Stockhead advertiser, it did not sponsor this article.