The face of a trader is reflected on the screen of a terminal on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange September 29, 2014.LUCAS JACKSON/Reuters
Inside the Market's roundup of some of the Canadian small caps making news and on the move today. This post will be updated through the morning.
Shares in Wi-Lan Inc. are down more than 10 per cent in TSX afternoon trading after the company said late Wednesday that Apple Inc. won a ruling that its iPhones and iPads don't infringe two patents owned by the Canadian technology licensor ahead of a trial that was scheduled next month on the claims.
"Wi-Lan is currently reviewing the ruling with trial counsel," the Ottawa-based company said in a statement.
The ruling comes almost a year after Wi-Lan lost a jury trial in Texas in which it sought $248 million in royalties from Apple for alleged infringement of another one of its patents. The companies have been in court in California, Florida and Texas for seven years over Wi-Lan's claims.
Apple, which last month unveiled its new, larger-screen iPhone models, has said in court filings that Wi-Lan has a history of asserting patents in bad faith and hasn't prevailed against Apple in any of the five lawsuits it has brought so far, the latest in June.
Sabraw's ruling effectively ends the case before it goes to trial. Apple said the patented technology pertains to prioritizing connections for allocating bandwidth and isn't relevant to its products because they don't have multiple connections that require prioritizing.
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Painted Pony Petroleum Ltd. has seen strong insider buying interest in recent days, notes AltaCorp Capital Research analyst Jeremy McCrea in a research report today.
Since the start of July, six members representing 42 per cent of its management and board have bought a total of 63,625 shares on the open market, valued at about $780,000.
Mr. McCrea has an "outperform" rating and $19 (Canadian) price target on Painted Pony. He commented, "In the past year, we've continued to discuss the ever improving completion techniques the company has enacted including slick water, open-hole completions and most recently, paired-parallel completions. These changes in engineering, and better IP rates, have caused the Street to revise PPS growth expectations which have propelled the stock to all-time highs this year. With AltaGas' recent investment (and extensive due diligence), an undrawn balance sheet with $3 million cash still expected at YE, a clear line of sight to 46,000 boe/d (implying a 60%+ growth over the next 2 years), a still further 2,000+ locations, and now some heavy insider buying, there are few names that can rival Painted Pony's future. Combined with a cheaper valuation than historically, the name has all the attributes to meaningfully outperform this year and for 2015."
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Trinidad Drilling Ltd. said it has agreed to build five new rigs under long-term, take-or-pay contracts for its U.S. operations.
"All five rigs have long-term, take-or-pay contracts signed with three different customers. In total, Trinidad expects to spend approximately $130-million constructing the rigs, half of which will be spent in 2014 and the remainder in 2015. Trinidad anticipates that its capital program for 2014 will remain unchanged at approximately $315-million. Strong demand from customers to keep equipment working and delayed delivery of long-lead equipment has pushed some of the upgrades Trinidad had originally scheduled for 2014 into 2015. The impact of these delays on the capital program is offset by the costs associated with the new builds, leaving the 2014 capital program largely unchanged," Trinidad Drilling said.
TD Securities analyst Scott Treadwell commented in a note, "We view the announced rigs builds as a positive, closing the gap created in Q2 when Trinidad had not announced domestic new builds, while its competitors were announcing fully contracted new build programs for 2015."
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Cub Energy Inc. said the security situation in and around the Makeevskoye, Olgovskoye and North Makeevskoye licences in eastern Ukraine has improved, and that its 30 per cent owned subsidiary which owns and operates the eastern Ukraine licences, has resumed its drilling program. Shares of Cub Energy surged 23 per cent at the TSX Venture opening, to 8 cents a share.
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Yamana Gold Inc. announced preliminary operating results of its third quarter. It said it produced record quarterly production of 390,000 gold equivalent ounces at cash costs that were within guidance.
Dundee Securities analyst Josh Wolfson called Yamana's production and exploration update "mixed." He commented in a research note, "Yamana produced 390,000 gold equivalent ounces in 3Q14, 3% below our estimate of 400,000, at all-in sustaining costs within its $825-875/oz guidance. While we expect production to increase in 4Q14, production of 426,000 would be required in 4Q to achieve 2014 guidance of >1.42 million ounces, which we believe will be a challenge. Exploration success at El Penon and Minera Florida has resulted in an opportunity to replace reserves from depletion in 2014, while additional exploration results at other operations (Chapada, Mercedes, Pilar) highlight further resource expansion opportunities. An updated technical report for Chapada is largely in line with expectations, but now incorporates Suruca in reserves, while at Mercedes, reserves have decreased (mine life of 8 years from 10 years."
Mr. Wolfson has a "sell, high risk" rating on the stock and $7.75 (Canadian) price target.
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Aptose Biosciences Inc. has filed for a reverse stock split. One common share will be given for each 12. It is expected that the common shares will commence trading on the TSX on a consolidated basis on or about Oct. 6, 2014.
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Starcore International Mines Ltd. and American Consolidated Minerals Corp. have entered into an agreement whereby Starcore would acquire all of the outstanding securities of American Consolidated Minerals in an all-share transaction. Under the terms of the acquisition, each American Consolidated Minerals shareholder would receive one Starcore common share for every three American Consolidated Minerals common shares held.
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Colabor Group Inc. said it has entered into an agreement with the Canada Revenue Agency regarding an objection to the tax consequences of the conversion of Colabor's income trust structure into a business corporation in August 2009.
"The agreement will not give rise to any cash outlay by the corporation for taxation years 2009 to 2013, and Colabor will prepare an overall update of the agreement's impact on its deferred tax assets and liabilities as part of its management's discussion and analysis accompanying its financial statements for the third quarter to be issued on October 21, 2014. The agreement will also result in a non-cash charge in the consolidated statement of earnings for the third quarter related to the write-off of certain of the corporation's deferred tax assets," Colabor said.
Desjardins Securities analyst Keith Howlett commented, "We view the agreement with the Canada Revenue Agency as highly positive. Management will be able to focus entirely on improving and growing the business. This is preferable to the distraction of lengthy and uncertain litigation that could take years to resolve." He rates Colabor as a "buy" with a price target of $4.50 (Canadian).
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Magellan Aerospace Corp. said it has amended and restated its operating credit agreement with its existing lenders in order to provide revolving loan facilities for Magellan for a four-year period, subject to annual extensions.
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With files from Bloomberg