Smaller companies report: Tuesday close

SMALL caps closed at a three-and-a-half-year high today, as the main market edged towards the 5000 mark. The FTSE Small Cap index closed 12.2 points higher at 2953.9, a level not seen since the end of June 2001, while the FTSE 100 index was up 15.7 points at 4,995.5.

DAT Group was a firm feature, up 86½p at 326p, after announcing a joint venture with Europe's Dangaard Telecom to develop and market mobile phone email products.

Elsewhere, specialist packaging Stanelco gained 2.00p to 12p after Evolution Securities hiked its target price on the stock to 20p from 10p following news of successful trials of one of the group's food packaging products.

Stanelco, which specialises in radio frequency (RF) enabled packaging for retailing, said recent trials by Asda of one of its food packaging products has been successful.

Wembley shares were also in demand, adding 67p to 808p as the UK-based gaming group agreed the conditional sale of its US gaming division to a consortium of private investors, for £339m.

Imperial Energy rose 50½p to 300½p. The company said that as a result of newly obtained data on Block 69 in the Tomsk Oblast region, it has decided to increase and modify its winter programme by adding one new well and one well re-entry on this block.

Elsewhere, QA Group edged up 0.50p to 3.75p as the training and consultancy group revealed narrowing full-year pretax losses of £2.39m against £3.2m and said there are signs of a cyclical upturn in the training market. Bookings are "comfortably" ahead of the same period last year.

A downbeat drilling and exploration update took the shine off Patagonia Gold. The share fell 2¼p to 9¾p.

Shares in Betonsports were also under pressure, losing 11½p to 113½p as news the UK-based internet gaming group expects in-line full-year results failed to stop broker Altium Securities downgrading its rating to 'sell' from 'hold' on valuation, arguing that the rally implies a trading recovery not confirmed by today's update.