Upstream Share Discussion Threads

[master rsi] 15/4/2024 08:45

PageGroup falls as gross profit declines in subdued recruitment market
(Alliance News) - Shares in PageGroup PLC fell on Monday after the recruiter said the slow market conditions seen at the end of last year had continued into 2024.

PageGroup is a Weybridge, England-based recruitment company. Shares in the company fell 5.0% to 459.80 pence each in London on Monday morning.

PageGroup said gross profit in the three months to March fell 13% to GBP219.7 million from GBP263.0 million the year prior.

Chief Executive Nicholas Kirk said the slower end to the fourth quarter continued into the first quarter of 2024, particularly within continental Europe.

"Overall, activity levels remain strong, however we experienced a slight deterioration in job flow towards the end of the quarter."

"Conversion of final interviews to accepted offers is still the most significant challenge, as candidate and client sentiment remains subdued reflecting the general macro-economic uncertainty in most of our markets," he continued.

Kirk said permanent recruitment was more impacted than temporary across all markets, as clients continue to "seek more flexible options."

But while he anticipates a period of "low confidence levels, based on our current outlook," Kirk intends to hold fee earner headcount broadly at existing levels to "ensure we are well placed to take advantage of opportunities as sentiment and confidence improve."

PageGroup said it exited the quarter with March down 18% on 2023, "albeit this was against a tough comparator and was impacted by the reduced number of working days in March due to the timing of Easter."

PageGroup said gross profit fell 13% in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, by 5.5% in the Americas, by 16% in Asia Pacific and by 19% in the UK.

Trading conditions in Asia, the UK and the US saw no improvement with low levels of client and candidate confidence continuing to delay time to hire, particularly in permanent recruitment, the company stated.

PageGroup said as clients' recruitment budgets have tightened, they have become more "risk averse", which has slowed the recruitment process.

Salary levels remain strong, but offers made to candidates were not as elevated as they were in 2022 and early 2023, PageGroup added.

PageGroup will issue second quarter results on July 10.

[master rsi] 15/4/2024 08:30

BOOM 260p -45p / Q1 Trading Update and Final
11% revenue growth, continued EBITDA profitability and record Q1 eCPM and brand count

Audioboom (AIM: BOOM), the leading global podcast company, is delighted to provide a trading update for the quarter ended 31 March 2024.

Financial and operating highlights

· Q1 revenue of US$17.1 million, up 11% on Q1 2023 (US$15.4 million). The positive momentum of Q4 2023 has continued with the second successive quarter of year-on-year revenue growth Revenue growth has accelerated in this period (Q4 2023: 5% up on Q4 2022) and the Company expects further acceleration in revenue growth rate through upcoming quarters

· March revenue of US$6.7 million represented the highest revenue month for the Company since May 2022

· Q1 adjusted EBITDA(1) profit of US$0.1 million (Q1 2023: US$0.2 million), representing the second successive quarter of adjusted EBITDA profitability. With Q1 historically the seasonal low point for revenue and EBITDA, we expect EBITDA profit to expand in future quarters

· Record Q1 eCPM (average global revenue per 1,000 downloads) of US$52.17, up 27% (Q1 2023: US$41.13)

· Record Q1 average total brand advertiser count of 7,839, up 21% on Q1 2023 (6,498)

· Average Q1 global monthly downloads of 110.0 million, (Q1 2023: 125.2 million, Q4 2023: 110.1 million). Due to Apple's iOS17 update in September 2023, download numbers across the wider podcast industry have decreased by an average of 32%(2). Audioboom's Q1 year-on-year decrease of 12% significantly outperforms the market. We expect the impact of the iOS17 update to create more favourable long-term commercial conditions in the podcast industry due to the increased levels of return-on-investment that more accurate download data will deliver to advertisers

· Further restructuring of creator contracts resulting in more favourable revenue shares and more than US$5 million of Minimum Guarantee obligations being removed

· Group cash of US$3.1 million (31 December 2023: US$3.7 million) with a further US$1.8 million available via an undrawn overdraft

· The Company is confident it will achieve its revenue and adjusted EBITDA goals for 2024, and has made significant progress with contracted revenue of more than US$55 million for the year through advanced advertising bookings - more than US$8 million added since the January 2024 Trading Update

Key Q1 2024 commercial developments

· Record audience reach achieved in January 2024, with more than 38.6 million unique listeners consuming podcasts through the Audioboom platform

· Record revenue from Showcase, our global advertising marketplace, in March 2024 reflects the Company's continued progress in building key advertising technology

· Record advertising inventory levels, with more than 1.1 billion impressions being made available to customers in March 2024, a 10% increase on the previously announced record from October 2023 (1 billion)

· Audioboom climbed the February 2024 Triton Digital podcast ranker for audience reach, and is now the fourth biggest publisher in the US - the world's largest podcast market

· The expansion of Audioboom's executive team, with the hiring of Molly Harvey as Vice President of Brand Sales (formerly of SiriusXM and CBS Radio), and Shaun Wilson as Vice President of UK Sales (formerly of Spotify and Sony Entertainment). These roles will focus on the expansion of Audioboom's brand sales business

· Successful renewal of contracts with top tier podcasts in the Audioboom Creator Network, including The Tim Dillon Show, True Crime Obsessed, I Think Not, Crime Weekly, and Real Ghost Stories. These podcasts contribute more than 90 million downloads to the network on an annual basis

· Further expansion of the Audioboom Creator Network through the signing of new shows including: Pretty X Unfiltered, Soder, BDA with Katherine Schwarzenegger, Omnibus, Do We Know Them? and George Conway Explains It All To Sarah Longwell. These shows are expected to deliver more than 4 million downloads to the network each month

Stuart Last, CEO of Audioboom, commented:

"2024 has started exactly as we hoped with the positive momentum of the final quarter of last year continuing. We recorded our second successive period of year-on-year revenue growth and adjusted EBITDA profit as our recovery from the challenging market conditions of 2023 continued. Over this coming year I expect our revenue growth rate to improve further. We have more than US$55 million of contracted revenue for 2024 from advance advertising bookings, and we are perfectly positioned at this stage of the year to deliver our goals of record revenue and adjusted EBITDA profitability.

We have made investments in our sales operation, and I am very pleased to bring two highly skilled and experienced executives into the Audioboom team. Molly Harvey in the US and Shaun Wilson in the UK will focus on expanding our blue-chip brand customer base to drive revenue and continue the maturation of our podcast monetisation engine.

Other key initiatives within the Company - including the continued growth of our Showcase marketplace, accelerated ad inventory creation, the expansion of our brand platform Sonic, and the restructuring and renewal of podcaster contracts on more favourable terms - continued to progress well in Q1.

We also took our first steps in the utilisation of AI to generate advertising creative and translate content for international distribution, as well as expanding our work in monetising YouTube content. These are two areas I believe will provide significant opportunity for the business in the coming years.

Sentiment in the advertising industry continues to improve, which can be seen in our progress so far. The team at Audioboom are continuing to create strong value in our platform for creators and brands, and we all look forward to delivering a record 2024."

1) Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, amortisation, share based payments, non-cash foreign exchange movements and material one-off items

2) Podnews analysis of Apple iOS17 impact utilising Triton Digital download data

---------------------------------------------

Final audited results for the year ended 31 December 2023

Audioboom (AIM: BOOM), the leading global podcast company, is pleased to announce its final audited results for the year ended 31 December 2023.

Financial and operating highlights

· 2023 revenue of US$65 million (2022: US$74.9 million)

· Annual adjusted EBITDA(1) loss of US$0.4 million (2022: US$3.6 million adjusted EBITDA profit)

· Average 2023 global monthly downloads of 121.9 million, up 4% on 2022 (117.1 million)

· Average 2023 monthly brand advertiser count of 7,727 up 47% on 2022 (5,257)

· 2023 eCPM (revenue per 1,000 downloads) of US$45 (2022: US$52.88)

· Group cash at year end of US$3.7 million (31 December 2022: US$8.1 million), with a further US$1.8 million available via an undrawn overdraft

· The Company anticipates record revenue in 2024 and a return to adjusted EBITDA profitability

· Q1 2024 trading update (announced today) details further revenue growth, adjusted EBITDA profitability and record Q1 eCPM and brand count

Key commercial developments

· Continued strong growth of Showcase, our global advertising marketplace. Revenue from Showcase in 2023 was more than 35% greater than in 2022 and is now contributing more than 23% to Group revenue (up from 15% in 2022)

· Positive development of our newly launched brand advertising unit, increasing our customer base with new early-stage commercial partnerships at 8 of the top 15 biggest US advertising agencies

· Expansion of our creator network through new tier one content partnerships, including Matt & Shane's Secret Podcast, The Why Files, The Broski Report, Heart Starts Pounding, Your Mom & Dad, Girls Next Level, Myths & Legends, and Out of the Pods

· Reduction of more than US$2 million of annual minimum guarantee obligations beginning 1 January 2024 through the successful re-structuring of creator partnerships, with further reductions to our minimum guarantee exposure expected throughout 2024

· Significant expansion of advertising inventory made available to customers, with October 2023 achieving the milestone of one billion available advertising impressions. Audioboom now creates more than eight advertising slots per episode download, positioning the Company to capture maximum available advertiser demand

· Successful launch of AdVet, a new proprietary tool for our creators that reduces advertising booking times by more than 60% and optimises Audioboom's win-rate of brand budgets

Post year-end highlights

· Record audience reach achieved in January 2024, with more than 38.6 million unique listeners consuming podcasts through the Audioboom platform

· Record revenue from Showcase, our global advertising marketplace, in March 2024 reflects the Company's continued progress in building key advertising technology

· Record advertising inventory levels, with more than 1.1 billion impressions being made available to customers in March 2024, a 10% increase on the previously announced record from October 2023 (1 billion)

· Audioboom climbed the February 2024 Triton Digital podcast ranker for audience reach, and is now the fourth biggest publisher in the US - the world's largest podcast market

· Audioboom achieved a record level of podcasts in the January 2024 Triton Digital podcast ranker, with the Company publishing 14 of the top 100 US shows

· Successful renewal of contracts with top tier podcasts in the Audioboom Creator Network, including The Tim Dillon Show, True Crime Obsessed, I Think Not, Crime Weekly, and Real Ghost Stories. These podcasts contribute more than 90 million downloads to the network on an annual basis

· Further expansion of the Audioboom Creator Network through the signing of new shows including: Pretty X Unfiltered, Soder, BDA with Katherine Schwarzenegger, Omnibus, Do We Know Them?, and George Conway Explains It All To Sarah Longwell. These shows are expected to deliver more than 4 million downloads to the network each month

· Reduction of a further US$3 million of annual minimum guarantee obligations through the successful re-structuring of creator partnerships

· The expansion of Audioboom's executive team, with the hiring of Molly Harvey as Vice President of Brand Sales (formerly of SiriusXM and CBS Radio), and Shaun Wilson as Vice President of UK Sales (formerly of Spotify and Sony Entertainment). These roles will focus on the expansion of Audioboom's brand sales business

· The Company has currently contracted revenue of more than US$55.0 million for 2024, through advance advertising bookings

[master rsi] 15/4/2024 08:12

FTSE

Opening lower with 29 points

[apotheki] 15/4/2024 07:23

KAVANGO RESOURCES PLC / LSE:KAV

ZIM: Hillside Prospect 4 Assay Results

ZIM: 29g/t gold intercepted over 2.5m at Hillside

Kavango Resources plc (LSE: KAV), the Southern Africa focussed metals exploration company, is pleased to announce the first assay results from the Hillside Prospect 4 gold project ("Prospect 4") in Matabeleland, southern Zimbabwe.

· Hole SKDD001 was a scoping hole sited to target mineralisation in a steeply dipping shear zone below artisanal workings (announced >>> 25 January 2024).

· SKDD001 was drilled to a total depth of 247.40 m and intersected the targeted shear zone being worked by the artisanal miners.

· Best results* in the hole include:

- 2.53 m @ 29.08 g/t gold from 97.47 m, associated with visible gold (average peak grade of 212.07 g/t over 0.34 m).

- 1.32 m @ 1.80 g/t gold from 214.46 m.

· The hole contains multiple further broad zones of geochemically anomalous gold values thought to relate to additional shear zones.

· An Induced Polarisation (IP) survey identified three further potential shear zones, parallel to the one being worked by artisanal miners.

· Results are pending on four other holes drilled across three other Hillside prospects.

· Kavango Mining to examine near surface gold mining potential at Prospect 4, based on intersected grades and ongoing artisanal mining in the area.

*All quoted thicknesses are apparent down hole intersection thicknesses

Ben Turney, Chief Executive of Kavango Resources, commented:

"This result far surpasses our expectations at Prospect 4.

Prospect 4 is our fourth-ranked target at Hillside. These results underline the Hillside Project's overall potential to host over 1 million ounces of mineable gold.

We sent the cores from Hole SKDD001 for immediate fire assay testing at a SADCAS accredited laboratory in Zimbabwe because of the visible gold. The near-term potential for possible mining at Prospect 4 was apparent as soon as we saw the core. We now need to test this potential with swift and methodical follow-up exploration. We are particularly looking forward to testing the additional three shear zones we believe we've identified here.

In terms of the results, we have pursued rigorous quality assurance and quality control. We also retested the high-grade gold zone.

We are delighted that the initial fire assays include one particularly significant gold intersection grading at 29.08 grams per tonne (g/t) over 2.53 m at a depth of 97.47 m. The secondary zone of 1.8 g/t over 1.32 m at 214 m depth is also encouraging. Given that we encountered anomalous gold throughout Hole SKDD001, we now need to return to Prospect 4 to assess further its commercial potential.

While we continue drilling at the Nara Project, we will send the SKDD001 pulps for multi-element testing at an internationally accredited laboratory in Johannesburg. We have confidence in the data we've published today and the tests in Johannesburg will help guide future drilling.

Having brought Kavango Mining into production in March, we are set up operationally to bring any new discovery into production with relative speed. While more drilling is needed to evaluate the scale of the opportunity, this is a highly promising start."

[master rsi] 14/4/2024 23:27

SUNDAY PAPERS TIPS

The Financial Mail on Sunday's Midas column labelled shares of PPHE an "attractive long-term buy" citing their valuation.

Independent experts had valued the hotel group's portfolio at £26.72 a share, versus the £14.80 on which the shares were trading.

The shares had recovered partially from their pandemic induced halving in value, rising from £9.83 during Covid-19 to £14.35.

But shares in the company, which both built and ran hotels, had yet to fully recover.

For Midas that was "unjustified", given how PPHE had posted record results posted in 2023 and given the good start to 2024.

Furthermore, management had suggested that good growth lay ahead.

"Shareholders can also take comfort in the founders' continued support for the business: with 43 per cent of the stock between them, they are highly motivated to see PPHE succeed."

The Sunday Times's Lucy Tobin told readers shares of Keystone Law were a 'buy', pointing to the shares significant outperformance versus peers over the last five years, when not more.

Key to the listed law firm's success was its entrepreneurial business model and 500 self-employed lawyers who shared a limited amount of centralised infrastructure.

Artificial intelligence was another factor, as large companies no longer saw "massive" legal costs as a routine part of doing business.

Keystone's costs were falling too, now that the 2023 salary price war for new recruits appeared to have largely run its course.

The importance of that was that the firm's ability to sign up new lawyers was key to the business's scalability.

Tobin also empohasised the company's ability to throw off cash and finance a progressive dividend policy, plus the previous year's special payout.

"The numbers may still be small but Keystone's highly cash-generative business model is shaking up a fusty industry," Tobin said.

"It's an eminently scalable platform with minimal capital demands, and still good value. Buy."

[master rsi] 14/4/2024 22:20

GGP 6.20p / Looking good moving ahead

[master rsi] 14/4/2024 20:24

SUNDAY PAPERS

Top stories

The Sunday Times: Tesla is at a crossroads as Elon Musk grapples with falling sales and an influx of cheap Chinese-made EVs; the company’s shares have shed about a third of their value this year alone; it is a personal challenge for Musk with a large part of his $200bn net worth wrapped up in Tesla stock.

The Sunday Times: Legal & General, AstraZeneca’s ninth-biggest shareholder, has cautiously backed Sir Pascal Soriot’s controversial pay deal at the drug giant, but it warned that any successor should not expect similar treatment.

[master rsi] 12/4/2024 23:39

All the COMMODITIES finished lower as the Dollar had made large gains in the afternoon

Gold $2344 - 31
OIL brent - $89.74
BITCOIN - $67,005 -2957

[master rsi] 12/4/2024 22:23

MARKET REPORT
LONDON MARKET CLOSE: Miners lift FTSE 100 but sea of red elsewhere

(Alliance News) - London's FTSE 100 defied a tricky day for wider markets, as its miners and oil producers shone, while the dollar was supported as odds of the US Federal Reserve enacting three interest rate cuts this year dwindle.

The FTSE 100 index ended up 71.78 points, 0.9%, at 7,995.58, closing below the 8,000 point mark despite approaching its best-ever level earlier in the day.

The FTSE 250 shed 65.63 points, 0.3%, at 19,721.24, and the AIM All-Share lost 2.92 points, 0.4%, at 755.91.

For the week, the FTSE 100 added 1.1%, the FTSE 250 barely budged, while the AIM All-Share climbed 2.1%.

The Cboe UK 100 added 1.0% to 799.46 on Friday, the Cboe UK 250 fell 0.5% to 17,126.64, and the Cboe Small Companies climbed 0.6% to 14,862.69.

In European equities on Friday, the CAC 40 in Paris lost 0.2% and the DAX 40 in Frankfurt fell 0.1%.

In New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 0.8%, the S&P 500 0.9% lower, and Nasdaq Composite giving back 1.0%.

Share price rises for miners helped the FTSE 100 find its groove, while peers across the Atlantic in mainland Europe struggled.

Gold producer Fresnillo surged 7.6%, tracking bullion prices higher. Gold was quoted at USD2,396.43 an ounce late Friday, higher against USD2,338.05 on Thursday.

Gold was not alone in shining. Base metals prices were also on the up, as was oil.

This pushed shares in miners Glencore and Anglo American up 5.1% and 3.7%, and oil majors Shell and BP up 2.6% and 3.7%.

Brent oil was quoted at USD91.05 a barrel late on Friday afternoon in London, up from USD89.94 late Thursday.

Rising global tensions boosted oil prices. Iran's threats of reprisals against Israel after a strike in Syria this month that killed two Iranian generals remain "real" and "viable," the White House said on Friday.

"We still deem the potential threat by Iran here to be real, to be viable," National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.

Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said Friday that Israel and the US were "shoulder to shoulder" in facing the threat from Iran, after talks with US Central Command chief Michael Kurilla.

"Our enemies think that they can pull apart Israel and the US, but the opposite is true – they are bringing us together and strengthening our ties", Gallant said in a statement, after the two discussed Iran's threats of retaliation for a deadly air strike on its consulate in Syria widely blamed on Israel.

Rising tensions hurt shares in airlines. easyJet lost 1.9% and British Airways parent International Consolidated Airlines Group fell 3.8%.

The dollar was largely higher in the world of foreign exchange, though the threat of currency intervention supported the yen. The pound fell to USD1.2451 late Friday afternoon in London, down from USD1.2513 at the equities close on Thursday. The euro stood at USD1.0643, lower against USD1.0705. Against the yen, the dollar was trading at JPY153.09, falling from JPY153.30.

Sterling traded below the USD1.25 mark for the first time since November. The euro was around its lowest level since November.

Analysts at ING said the red-hot US consumer price index report on Wednesday "was the trigger to a substantial dollar rally". A "dovish shift" by the European Central Bank and Bank of Canada "has now made that rally more sustainable", the Dutch bank believes.

"Both banks have given a nod to market bets for a rate cut in June, and rightly so given the considerably more encouraging domestic inflation outlook than in the US. As things stand now, the Federal Reserve looks unlikely to match that same dovishness, and the case for a growing divergence between an immobile FOMC and a bunch of dovish central banks is getting stronger," analysts at ING commented.

The pound fell on the greenback despite data suggesting the UK is out of recession.

According to the Office for National Statistics, UK gross domestic product rose by 0.1% in February from January, in line with FXStreet cited consensus. UK GDP had expanded 0.3% on-month in January, according to revised data.

Back in London, Huddled Group rose 7.7% after the investor in e-commerce brands said it will acquire Food Circle Supermarket for up to GBP300,000.

Food Circle is an online retailer based in Dinnington, South Yorkshire. In 2023, it delivered revenue of around GBP1.4 million.

According to Huddled, the acquisition is complementary to its Discount Dragon business and is "the next step in the group's strategy to build a portfolio of e-commerce brands".

Bens Creek plummeted 24% after it reported that it has laid off 44 employees. The owner and operator of metallurgical coal mines across North America said that the move is due to "the depressed metallurgical coal price", as well as "financial constraints at the company and production difficulties", at its mining project in West Virginia.

Bens Creek added that the mine will be operated on a care and maintenance basis for the time being.

Bens Creek added that lower coal prices and interruptions in production at the mine in West Virginia had put a strain on the company's cashflow in the first months of 2024.

Monday's economic calendar has a eurozone industrial production reading at 1000 BST, before US retail sales data at 1330 BST.

The UK corporate calendar has a trading statement from emerging markets-focused investment manager Ashmore Group.

[master rsi] 12/4/2024 22:04

DOW

Finishing well down with 475 points .....

On Wall Street, the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 475.84 points, or 1.24%, to 37,983.24,
the S&P 500 lost 75.65 points, or 1.46%, to 5,123.41
and the Nasdaq Composite lost 267.10 points, or 1.62%, to 16,175.09.

[master rsi] 12/4/2024 16:52

How the UPS are performing during last month

[master rsi] 12/4/2024 16:22

How the UPS are performing today

[master rsi] 12/4/2024 15:51

Oxford Nanopore tech used in 'groundbreaking' telomere study
Sharecast News) - Oxford Nanopore took the wraps off a "groundbreaking" study using its technology on Friday, shedding light on the measurement of human telomeres - the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes crucial for genome integrity.

The London-listed firm said the breakthrough, published in the journal Science, was a significant advancement in understanding the correlation between telomeres and age-related diseases, as well as cancer susceptibility.

Led by Nobel laureate Dr Carol Greider of UC Santa Cruz, the research represented the first successful attempt to precisely measure and profile telomere length using Oxford Nanopore's sequencing technology.

Dr Greider envisioned the telomeric regions, along with associated proteins, as potential targets for preventive healthcare interventions and drug discovery initiatives.

The company explained that decades of scientific inquiry, including research spearheaded by Dr Greider, established the pivotal role of telomeres in health and disease.

Short telomeres were linked to degenerative conditions, while long telomeres could predispose individuals to cancer.

Despite that understanding, the intricate mechanisms governing telomere length regulation had thus far remained elusive.

In the study, the team analysed telomere lengths in 147 individuals, uncovering a pattern where specific telomeres consistently exhibited either the shortest or longest lengths.

The observation suggested that certain chromosome ends with shorter telomeres could be implicated in triggering stem-cell failure, offering insights for further clinical investigation and potential drug development.

Central to the breakthrough was Oxford Nanopore's technology, which enabled the observation of long telomere-length reads at nearly single nucleotide resolution for the first time.

The firm said the capability had sparked a surge of interest in telomere-based research, exemplified by the development of a novel workflow called Telo-seq, jointly pioneered by Oxford Nanopore and the Karlseder lab at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in November last year.

"Today marks a significant milestone not just for Oxford Nanopore but for the field of genomics," said chief executive officer Gordon Sanghera.

"This breakthrough illustrates that what you're missing matters in genomics, showcasing the benefits of richer insights to capture more types of genetic variation and unravel the mysteries of biology."

Sanghera said it was also a step towards new healthcare solutions, offering novel avenues for preventing and treating age-related diseases and cancer.

"We are proud to be at the forefront of this research, empowering scientists worldwide with tools that unlock unprecedented genomic insight."

At 1450 BST, shares in Oxford Nanopore Technologies were down 0.04% at 108.7p.

[master rsi] 12/4/2024 14:48

DOW

Opening lower with 203 points down

[master rsi] 12/4/2024 14:35

Bens Creek shares fall as it moves mine into care and maintenance
(Sharecast News) - Shares in North American metallurgical coal miner Bens Creek were sliding on Friday afternoon, after the company issued an update on its operations and working capital position, confirming that its West Virginia mine was moving into care and maintenance.

The AIM-traded firm said that in response to the current state of the metallurgical coal market, financial constraints within the company, and operational challenges at its mine, its board had made a number of key decisions on 9 and 10 April.

As a result, Bens Creek Operations WV (BC Operations), a wholly-owned subsidiary, had significantly reduced operations.

That decision led to the lay-off of 44 employees, a substantial portion of the mine's workforce in West Virginia.

Additionally, from 11 April, the mine would operate on a care and maintenance basis for the foreseeable future.

Avani Resources, the company's largest shareholder, primary off-take partner and lender, was currently engaged in discussions with Bens Creek regarding the terms of providing additional financial support.

The company said a term sheet outlining the terms was under review by the company's legal counsel.

Any potential agreement with Avani could constitute a related party transaction under the AIM rules, the board noted.

"The company continues to assess all options available to it and will make further announcements at the appropriate time," the board said in its statement.

At 1359 BST, shares in Bens Creek Group were down 23.53% at 0.65p.

[master rsi] 12/4/2024 12:44

How the UPS are performing during last month

[master rsi] 12/4/2024 12:29

How the UPS are performing today