News

Marketing solutions provider Altitude Group saw pre-tax profits soar to £0.27m in the first half of 2008 from £0.12m a year earlier, despite revenue sliding to £9m from £9.7m.

The company said its improved performance was due to a focus on margin delivery in its Promotional Marketing unit and the further development of the Information and Exhibitions offerings.

Oil and gas company Independent Resources (IRG) has received government approval to start production testing at the Italy's first coalbed methane project near the country's north-west coast.

"This project promises the development of a potentially very important energy resource in a market where there is a healthy growth in demand for gas and where existing indigenous gas production is falling rapidly," IRG executive chairman Grayson Nash said.

Gene therapy company Oxford BioMedica received positive interim results from the Phase I/II trial of its novel gene therapy, ProSavin, for the treatment of Parkinson's disease.

The three patients in the first-dose cohort showed improvements in disease symptoms. An independent Data Monitoring Committee has reviewed the data and recommended the trial continues to evaluate the higher dose of ProSavin.

Recruitment group Impellam slipped into a first half loss after hefty merger costs and cautioned the outcome for the second half is also uncertain.

The group, which formed from the merger of Carlisle and CSG, posted a loss of £1.5m (£2.5m profit) in the half year to June, on sales of £517m up from £463m. Underlying operating profits rose slightly to £6.3m.

" We enter our traditionally stronger second half year for the group with the performance of our UK and US Commercial staffing sectors remaining under pressure," Impellam said, adding that pro-forma earnings will be broadly similar to last year.

Floor levelling specialist Somero's profits fell by 43% to $3.1m in the half year to June as the US construction market turned down with the credit crunch. Revenues fell by $3.4m to $31m.

"Trading is continuing in line with the revised revenue and earnings targets set following our trading update in May. We see the international non-residential construction market remaining strong, and also see strong demand remaining in the North American and European replacement market," it said. The interim dividend is held at 3c.

Offshore financial services group STM is to pay a maiden interim dividend of 0.2p after it upped interim profits by 111% to £1.43m. Turnover rose to £4.26m for the six months to June from £1.68m. "The second half of our financial year is traditionally the stronger of the two in terms of earnings and with further acquisitions in various stages of negotiation, we remain confident of achieving the market's expectation for the full year," STM added.

Restaurant owner Tasty trimmed losses to £92,000 (£137,000) in the half year to June on sales of £3.72m, up from £2.44m. Tasty opened two new restaurants, to take its total to 10, during the first six months of 2008. A new Italian restaurant under the Wildwood brand opens this month.

Mobile marketing and advertising group Velti's profit rose by 38% to €1.59m in the six months to June on revenues more than doubled at €15.9m (€7.4m). "The outlook for earnings in the current year is in line with current expectations and there is a high degree of confidence in meeting these. At the same time the rapid development of the new streams of business is expected to give revenues well ahead of current expectations," Velti added.

KBC Advanced Technologies, the consultant to the energy industry, said half year pre-tax profit doubled to £2.8m from £1.4m last year thanks to strong demand across all three operating regions.

"We remain confident that our increasing portfolio of services and products, addressing both the CapX and OpX elements of our clients' requirements augmented by our proprietary software tools, will continue to deliver strong growth during the remainder of 2008 and beyond," said chairman Christopher Powell-Smith.

Crash repair specialist Nationwide Accident reported a 14% rise in pre-tax profit in the half year ended 30 June to £3.9m and said it remain confident that the business is well positioned for ongoing growth.

Omega Insurance Holdings said first half pre-tax profit rose 20% to $24.5m, adding that its outlook for the full year 2008 and beyond is positive despite challenging market conditions.

Construction services group Interior Services said it has a strong order book and the visibility to be confident of further progress in the current year as it reported a 27% rise in full year pre-tax profits to £12.6m.

Iofina, which raised £15.1m when it floated on AIM in May, reported a net loss of £317,496 in the six months ended 30 June compared with a net loss of £30,820 last time. The group said it still has net cash of £14.2m to cover the planned drill programme.