LONDON (ShareCast) - James Halstead, the floorings distributor, is expanding its Nordic operations with the acquisition of Swedish based Falck Design.

Falck, which primarily focuses on luxury tiles and exports goods around Scandinavia and the Baltic States, is part of Halstead’s strategy to beef up its presence on the continental market.

Water services group Spice Holdings today made some headway after it confirmed that its meter reading division Meter-U has agreed with Siemens to provide meter reading services in the East of England.

The extension to its existing contract for the East Midlands should increase turnover by about £2.5m. The group added that it is also conducting a pilot gas meter reading scheme, which could lead to further agreements.

1st Dental Laboratories, the services provider to the dental industry, has made another acquisition, this time paying a maximum of £600,000 for Aesthetic Dental Lab Limited.

The group said ADL, a Wolverhampton-based crown & bridge lab, would be immediately earnings enhancing.

Publishing-focused technology services provider Ingenta surged ahead today after saying that results for the first half to September will show a modest but nevertheless improving trend.

Ingenta said top line revenue has not met expectations, due to delays in new contracts, though it has halted the trend of falling turnover seen over the last 18 months.

Results for the final three months of the current period to December should show it is near break even on an ebitda basis.

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