Small-cap Week, April 18

GW Pharmaceuticals was among the biggest small-cap gainers this week on optimism that its cannabis oil can be used to treat childhood epilepsy.

Trial results published by the American Academy of Neurology suggested that GW's Epidiolex cannabidiol reduced seizures by more than half, which lifted the stock 19.2 per cent to a record high. GW is due to present the full paper to the Academy on Wednesday.

GW's £1.4bn market valuation makes it Aim's second-largest company, with the shares rising 11-fold since it took a Nasdaq listing in 2013.

HVivo, a clinical study operator formerly known as Retroscreen Virology, rose 30.5 per cent on full-year results. The lossmaking group said it had successfully completed development of an asthma study model, which had been seen as a key risk to forecasts, and was making progress on a model for flu infections.

Translation specialist RWS fell 11.7 per cent after its half-year update cautioned to expect flat sales and earnings. Management blamed slow conversion of recent client wins, a competitive market and "subdued trading conditions" for its foreign patent filing arm.

Carr's rose 15.5 per cent. The mill operator and animal-feed maker posted improved interim earnings and said that it remained on track to meet full-year forecasts, in spite of a difficult outlook for farming.

Sub-penny gold miner Connemara Mining rose 100 per cent after it acquired five new prospecting licences in County Donegal, Ireland.

Disease-hit plantation adds to Asian Citrus woes

Asian Citrus's woes piled up this week as it revealed that its Xinfeng plantation of 1.6m orange trees in China had been struck by citrus greening disease, a deadly infection that kills trees and turns the fruit unusable, writes Kate Burgess.

The infection rate is about 18 per cent but the board said that the nature of the disease meant it would be hard to assess the full impact for many months. The news comes a few weeks after the Aim-quoted group said that its Hepu plantation had been hit by typhoons and citrus canker, and that the orange crop would be down 60 per cent on the same period in 2014 while the average selling price of its oranges had fallen a third from a year earlier.

Brokers Cantor Fitzgerald pointed out that the latest news would be further hindrance to the group's plans for recovery. It is reviewing its forecast for the year to June for Rmb851m ($137m) in turnover against Rmb1,271m last year. The shares, which peaked in 2010 at 80p, fell by more than a fifth during the week to 6.60p.

Madagascar Oil buoyant after field green light

Shares in Madagascar Oil doubled in value this week after it received full approval from the government of the island state in the Indian Ocean for the development of a heavy oilfield, writes Michael Kavanagh.

Shares in the company, which have been hit by a combination of political instability in Madagascar coupled with the recent collapse in the price of crude, jumped from last week's close of 5p to 10p on Thursday. On Friday they slipped slightly to 9p, valuing the company's equity at just over £60m.

This followed formal presidential sanction for the ramping up of production at its Tsimiroro concession, where $300m has already been spent in the past decade, with the aim of bringing the field's viscous deposits to market.

Approval from the government comes four months after Robert Estrill was appointed chief executive. His experience of using the steam flood technique in Indonesia has been adopted to force hydrocarbon reserves from the ground by Madagascar Oil.

Analysts predicted that the backing should help Madagascar Oil raise future money, and fuel interest among potential partners, or acquirers.

Gas leak calculation errors take toll on Telecom Plus

Shares in Telecom Plus, the energy and phone group that aspires to join the UK's big six, fell almost 15 per cent after it revealed that errors in calculating gas leakage would result in an £11m charge and restated accounts for seven years, writes Conor Sullivan.

This followed a review of the entry on its balance sheet covering the difference between customers' meter readings and gas pumped into the grid by network operators.

Two to 3 per cent of gas leaks is stolen, the cost of which Telecom Plus had failed to account for. The company said that there could well be an element of it "catching up" with accounting practices of bigger rivals. The review covered seven years, accounts for which would now be amended.

Details of the error were included in a trading update that said that adjusted pre-tax profits for the year to March 2015 were now expected to be £52m-£53m. Total dividend would be up 14 per cent on the year before.

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