We begin this article with the cautionary tale of former high-flying cloud telephony and conferencing firm LoopUp (LOOP:AIM).

At the beginning of March, the firm dropped a bombshell on investors by announcing the board had unanimously decided that canceling its listing on AIM and raising money from a handful of private backers was ‘in the best interests of the group and our shareholders’.

The stock price promptly crashed and trading volumes went through the roof as shareholders piled through the exit, rescuing what little cash they could before their shares became worthless.

There was happier news for investors in smart-building systems provider Smartspace Software (SMRT:AIM) with the firm announcing it had received a cash offer at 90p per share from SIS, a provider of visitor authentication systems.

Having seen a previous offer at 82p per share from Skedda fall by the wayside, the 169% premium to Smartspace’s undisturbed share price back in December was warmly welcomed although 90p still doesn’t feel like a knock-out blow considering the shares were trading at £10 a decade ago and £100 even longer ago than that.

Shareholders in cadmium-free quantum dot-maker Nanoco (NANO) were also in the pink after the firm announced it would return up to £33 million via a tender offer for £30 million worth of stock at 24p and a £3 million open-market buyback.

The cash is part of the proceeds from the firm’s successful litigation against Korean giant Samsung for infringement of its IP (intellectual property) and represents nearly half its market cap.

With the shares trading below 21p and the register open until 9 April there would seem to be scope for a small arbitrage with the proviso that only 38.5% of all outstanding shares can be tendered.

Finally, new listing MicroSalt (SALT:AIM), which pitches itself as ‘a major potential disrupter in the food market’ thanks to its product of the same name, which contains 50% less sodium than regular salt, announced it had received a Notice of Allowance from the US patent office.

That means the claims it made in its patent for MicroSalt are valid, so if successful the firm could get a patent all the way to 2039 which was one of the hooks it used to attract investors to its IPO (initial public offering).

Considering the shares were floated at 43p and are now trading at almost double that figure, this has to be one of most successful IPOs of the last few years despite its small size.

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