Natural resource investor Paternoster Resources plc (LON:PRS) shares zipped up over 10% to 0.155p as it issued a strategic update.
It reckons its corporate costs can be reduced, particularly in personnel and infrastructure, following its co-investment agreement with finance provider RiverFort Global Capital earlier this month.
"The board is focused on rapidly implementing the company's enhanced strategy in order to improve returns to investors and I am pleased to announce that progress is already being made on this, starting with a reduction in costs," said Nicholas Lee, chairman.
Under the RiverFort deal, investors gain exposure to RiverFort's opportunities by investing in Paternoster.
In addition, Paternoster placed 771mln shares at 0.11p a pop to raise ?850,000.
With the RiverFort agreement and funding, Paternoster said it can strike a balance between maximising its pipeline of investment opportunities while keeping control of costs.
British investor HICL Infrastructure Company Limited (LON:HICL) saw shares plunge nearly 5% on Friday as the fallout from the collapse of outsourcer Carillion (LON:CLLN) has hit the former's projects.
Ten projects within the HICL portfolio had facilities management subcontracts with subsidiaries of Carillion so the liquidation of the FTSE 250 firm has triggered defaults on loan agreements at most of them.
HICL noted though that its contingency plans meant the delivery of services in the period since Carillion's liquidation has been stable.
But the group added that although the projects' lenders are currently supportive of the actions under way, those projects will be unable to make distributions whilst they remain in default.
The current estimated impact of Carillion's bankruptcy on HICL would be around ?50mln in net asset value, which is in addition to a prior provision of ?9.4mln.
Shares shed 4.745 to 140.50p.
Elsewhere, Physiomics Plc (LON:PYC) shares gained over 6% in London to stand at 9p after it was awarded another pre-clinical contract for its Virtual Tumour technology with an unnamed major pharma group worth ?35,000.
Physiomics' Virtual Tumour is a sophisticated computer model that simulates tumour cell division and predicts the effect of different anti-cancer regimes.
Scientific Digital Imaging PLC (LON:SDI) was a notable London riser in early deals as the medtech and healthcare group posted 106% increase in pre-tax profit in its latest half year, while revenues increased 34%.
The firm was boosted by the addition of further acquisitions to the business - via its Sentek and Atik Cameras businesses as well as from its Astles Control Systems and Applied Thermal Control buys.
Shares on AIM added over 15% to 30p.
"The first half of the financial year has seen the group report substantial growth and we are pleased that trading in the current second half continues in line with management expectations," said Ken Ford, chairman.
"We have been pleased with the performance of Applied Thermal Control which was acquired in August 2017. The acquisition was another exciting step in the Group's growth strategy and the Group looks forward with confidence."
Last August the firm acquired chiller maker Applied Thermal Control Ltd for up to ?1.2mln, coming hot on the heels of the ?4.8mln acquisition of chemical control system firm Astles Control Systems Ltd in December 2016.
Another riser on the day was software and service provider Ingenta PLC (LON:ING), which surged over 16% to 135.5p on the back of a trading update.
It said adjusted underlying earnings in the year to December 31 increased to at least ?1.4mln as it continued to see further margin improvements.
Revenue was in line with management expectations but Ingenta did not provide any figures.
Separately, the group announced a plan to increase its flexibility to pay dividends by seeking to cancel its share premium account in a bid to create extra distributable reserves.
Ingenta said the additional reserves will allow it to pay more dividends and support any future share buybacks.
ReNeuron Group Plc (LON:RENE) said positive long-term data on its CTX cell therapy for stroke was presented at a US conference. Professor Keith Muir, of the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow, and Principal Investigator for ReNeuron's PISCES II study, told the audience upper limb functional recovery was "durable and maintained" out to 12 months post-treatment.
Fuel cell specialist AFC Energy plc (LON:AFC) has started a search for a new chief financial officer as Richard Tuffill will be leaving at the end of March this year for personal reasons. "Richard has provided valuable support to AFC Energy since joining and has strengthened the financial, reporting and internal controls at the company with a continued strong emphasis on cash preservation and governance," the company said in a brief statement.
Amur Minerals Corp (LON:AMC) has started a new resource assessment process for the Kun Manie project, in Russia's Far East, and it told investors to expect a substantial upgrade from last February's mineral resource estimate. Last year's estimate was based on deposits with a total strike length of 1.4 kilometres, whereas, following new data from the 2017 drill campaign the new assessment will estimate resources across an expanded 3.6 kilometres.
Akers Biosciences, Inc. (LONL:AKR) (NASDAQ:AKER), the developer of rapid health information technologies, has received proceeds of US$525,000 from a further exercise by warrant holders over an aggregate 2.8mln shares at an exercise price of US$0.1875 per share.