SMALL CAP MOVERS: In The Style shares suffer one last fall before being sold for a pittance
Online fashion retailer In The Style’s stormy two-year tenure on the stock market comes to an end with one final sting in the tails of investors, who have seen the share price plummet around 99% over the of this period.
A period fraught with operational and financial difficulties was crowned when the board decided this week to offload what was left of the business.
Worth £105million when it listed in March 2021, the retailer is offloaded for just £1.2million.
Cue the inevitable final crash of the stock, which has lost 80% of its value in the past five trading days.
Part of buyer Baaj Capital’s proposal involved founder Adam Frisby remaining as chief executive.
Sale: In The Style, founded by Adam Frisby (pictured second from left), was worth £105million when it listed in March 2021. The online retailer is now unloaded for just £1.2million
He and a group of shareholders who sold £49million worth of shares in the IPO are among the few beneficiaries of this brief flirtation with the public markets.
Looking at the broader sector, small cap stocks in the market fell. The AIM All-Shares index slipped 3.34% to 836.98 during the week, slightly worse than the FTSE 100 index, which lost 2.58% to 7,742.36.
WANDisco shares are on hold at the end of a bizarre week in the data company’s spotlight.
The group has gone from a rumor that it was considering a dual listing in the United States to a request to halt trading of its shares on AIM as it investigates “significant, sophisticated and potentially fraudulent” irregularities in his results.
Elsewhere, shares of stockbroker Cenkos fell 15% to 42p following the company’s annual earnings calls.
Chief executive Julien Morse noted that AIM was experiencing its “lowest levels of business for almost two decades”, with profits falling 95% to £200,000, roughly breaking even.
Atlantic Lithium’s rebound on Thursday was not enough to fully revive the stock, which was down 28% in the week to 26p.
The exploration and development company has issued a response to a “false and misleading report” regarding its partner Piedmont Lithium, which prompted an aggressive short sale of Atlantic shares on Wednesday.
Telecoms group Calnex has warned that order delays will lead to lower results for the end of the year in March 2024, as shares fell 33% to 113p.
Financial services company Jarvis Securities cut its dividend following a 20% drop in pre-tax profits, which caused the share price to fall 16% to 140p.
Sabien Technology was one of AIM’s bright sparks this week after its M2G business, Sabien Technology Ltd, secured a large order from a UK government department for its CO2 mitigation devices. Shares have jumped 9% in London over the past five days to 10.1p.
The exit from Russia is still having a big impact on London stocks, with pharmaceutical company Ovoca Bio rising 20% to 6.5p after selling Russian assets for just under £1million.
Getech investors were impressed by the geoenergy group’s appointment of Dr Graham Cooley to lead its green H2 project, with a stock 5% higher than last week at 3pm.
Cooley had “successfully” led ITM Power as chief executive from 2009 to 2022, where the share price peaked at 666p in 2021 from around 10p when he took over.
Plexus was another of AIM’s rising companies, gaining 2.4% to 3.5p.
The group has secured a £5 million order for its proprietary POS-GRIP wellhead equipment and sealing technology for a specialist project application, which will be deployed over the next 12 months.
Fuel, food and feed distributor NWF Group continued its good momentum from the first half to the second, announcing that full-year results will be “significantly above market expectations”. Investors took advantage, with shares gaining 7% to 274p.
With a slew of companies considering leaving the UK for the US, including oil giant Shell, two new listings have been announced this week and investors can expect that.
Fadel Partners, the brand compliance and rights and royalty management software company, is due to list on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM market later this month, along with Guernsey investment fund Onward Opportunities which should join him.
