LONDON (ShareCast) - A 10-week plant shutdown following February’s boiler fire inflated half year losses at Kazakhstan-focused gold miner Hambledon Mining to £3.4m from £1m in 2007.

The firm is also addressing teething problems which have hampered the business since operations restarted in April, slowing progress towards full, targeted production.

Environmental markets focussed investment company Impax expects full year results to be “materially ahead of market expectations”. Despite falling equity markets, assets under management and advisory grew from £983m at the end of September 2007 to £1.184bn a week ago.

Coal mine developer and former bid target GCM Resources said the gain made on the sale of its interest in CCEC was responsible for an £864,000 post-tax profit. The company, which last year lost £923,000, said it is committed to the Phulbari coal project in Bangladesh, the development of which is awaiting approval from the Bangladeshi government.

Gaming VC boss Kenneth Alexander was pleased with the online gaming group’s first half performance that saw revenue grow 20% to €26.3m and pre-tax profit by 23% to €10.5m. “Trading volumes and margins in the third quarter continue to be in line with market expectations,” said the company. “We are confident the group can continue to deliver growth in terms of profitability and expansion of the business outside of our core German casino business.”

Card issuing machine manufacturer Matica moved into the black in the first half of 2008, posting a pre-tax profit of €0.5m, versus a loss a year earlier of €0.1m. Revenue rose to €7.5m from €6.8m, reflecting significant new contract wins from Spain, Poland and Ukraine. The order book is strong and market conditions are improving, the company said.

Under-performing marketing group Optimisa is passing on its interim dividend in order to speed up its debt reduction programme. As presaged in its trading statement back in May, trading conditions worsened considerably in the second quarter of 2008, with all three of the group’s main operating units performing well below budget.

Profit before tax in the first half of 2008 tumbled to £0.4m from £0.78m a year earlier on revenue that grew from £4.7m to £9.1m.

Synchronica, the mobile synchronisation and device management company, has secured a licensing deal for its push e-mail software with a mobile operator in Belgium.The customer will pay Synchronica a recurring licence fee of €0.34 per subscriber per month, plus a one-off set-up fee of €200,000 and a monthly hosting fee of €3,000. The hosting fee will rise in line with the number of subscribers.

IT staffing company InterQuest upped interim profits by 42% to £2.01m from 1.42 million pounds last year. Revenue rose by 39% to £53.5m, helped by contributions from acquisitions made in 2007.

Skin and hair regeneration drug developer Intercytex increased losses from £6.04m to £6.59m in the half year to June, with higher R&D spending accounting for nearly all of the increase. The group had net cash at the half year of £6.36m an raised a further £2.5m in September.

"We particularly look forward to reporting on the outcome of our pivotal Phase III trial of Cyzact, the progress of VAVELTA in the burns contracture study, and our developing role within the AFIRM consortium," it added.

Brazil-focused property developer Itacare upped basic net asset value per share to $1.25 (at end June 31 December 2007: $1.06)after it posted a profit of $5.2m compared with a $0.4m loss. "Refinancing of Warapuru phases 2 and 3 will provide better terms for the company, together with safeguards in the event of further delayed delivery," it added.

Insurance run-off specialist Randall & Quilter doubled first half profits to £4.42m, with operating profits up from £3m to £4.5m. " These encouraging results confirm the success of our business model, hence we can pay a dividend whilst retaining funds to exploit market opportunities" chief executive Ken Randall added. The dividend for the period is 4.8p.

• News Channel