News

In-flight products and catering provider Watermark's subsidiary Air Fayre has retained its contract to provide catering for all of Qantas' flights from London, Heathrow for a further 3 years. The new contract begins in December 2008 and is valued at approximately £7m per year.

Further significant oil shows at its Ombrina Mare 2 appraisal well offshore Italy had Mediterranean Oil & Gas sharply higher Friday. "The programme to appraise the Ombrina Mare oil and gas field continues to provide very good results," said boss Sergio Morandi.

Van Dieman Mines has warned it cannot rule out a "modest short-fall" in its working capital requirements following delays in commissioning and achieving full production at its Scotia tin and sapphire project in Tasmania, Australia.

"The board is therefore reviewing a range of options to source additional working capital, and the company is in advanced discussions with a number of banks and financial institutions to that end," it said.

Kalimantan Gold leapt to its highest in a couple of months today after it signed an option agreement to buy a 75% stake in each of five coal concessions in Indonesia. Reports confirm their potential, it added.

BB Holdings, which has a financial services business based in Belize, saw net income from operations for the fourth quarter ended March 2008 rise to $16.8m from $12.5m previously.

Insurance software specialistInnovation has agreed to pay £1.1m for the online garage services company NSN Holdings. It will also pay up to £5.55m in earn out payments up to 2012, depending on NSN's performance.

"The acquisition of NSN enables the group to offer a unique and compelling proposition to our customers, extending our services from a repair network to a repair and service network, providing a 'one stop shop' for vehicle management, servicing and repair," Innovation chief executive Hassan Sadiq said.

Online gamer 888, has signed a strategic agreement with Rival Powered, a leading provider of game-server software and thematically based virtual games known as 'iSlots'. 888 will integrate Rival's titles and fun video introductions into 888's gaming arena, gaming history and shared wallet.

Independent oil and gas firm Frontera saw loss from operatons increase to $4.6m from $3.1m in the same period last year.

Software firm Macro 4 expects full-year revenue to be between £28m and £29m and said the economic climate remains difficult.

The group said there is now a greater degree of uncertainty in forecasting the timing of new business contracts than in previous years, but still remains confident that the level of new business generated in the second half of the financial year will be stronger than in the first half.

Shares in Elixir Petroleum rallied after the oil & gas explorer said production rates at its Pompano Project continue to exceed pre-drill expectations, with the first two wells producing a total of 16MMscf of gas per day and 60 barrels of condensate per day.