Megabuyte - Technology sector intelligence

Telecoms consultancy Norcon has followed up its relatively weak first half by warning that the second half will be in line with the first, due to delays in a couple of large projects. With costs also increasing, full year profitability will be about a third below expectations on our estimates, with a possible similar knock on impact on the dividend. The company has said that FY11 is expected to be in line with FY10. Readers can see our investment notes on Norcon here.

Bango raises £2.4m to strengthen balance sheet

Mobile web specialist Bango has raised £2.4m at a 2.7% share price premium, to help strengthen the balance sheet and meet demand from new institutional investors. The new money will be about 5% of Bango’s market value, with the shares having more than trebled during this year. The fund raising comes after the company warned about revenues for the current year due to specific operator issues in the US, but painted a very positive view of the future, in part due to the company’s role as provider of mobile payment services for the new RIM/Blackberry application store. Premium Plus readers can see our coverage of Bango’s recent interim results here.

Redstone secures last of non-core asset disposals

Redstone has now largely completed its disposal of non-core assets by selling the security business of its subsidiary Redstone Managed Solutions Limited to management for £1m in cash, which will be received in various payments between now and March 2011.  The business is quite sizeable, with 58 staff and revenues of £9.2m in the year to March 2010 (9.4% of the company total), but was barely profitable at the EBITDA level. We estimate that Redstone’s net debt is now well under £5m, against £20m at March 2010. Premium Plus readers can see our write ups of Redstone recent turnaround, involving a fund raise, assets sales, an acquisition, and management changes, here).