Late last year AIM-listed Van Dieman Mines boasted that it was sitting on about £700 million of sapphire and tin at the two mines it was trying to build in a nature reserve in Tasmania.

Now, with one mine nearly built, it turns out that figures used for the forecast came from drilling done 70 to 100 years ago. New managers, who have ousted one of the three co-founders, Neil Kinnane, and said goodbye to another, Clive Trist, must do new drilling.

Meanwhile the ground is waterlogged at one mine, meaning that new equipment will be required. The delays have forced Van Dieman Mines to begin talks with its banks to try to raise new cash. The banks may have a few questions. The shares fell 3p to 7¾p.

New Britain Palm Oil, the owner of palm oil plantations in Australasia, rose 50p to a high of 600p, more than twice its 250p flotation price five months ago, after announcing a bid of £22 million for control of Ramu Agri Industries, a planter in Papua New Guinea. It is benefiting from the global shortage of palm oil.

Michael Jackson, former chairman of the Sage software group, has not had much luck with his next venture, Mediasurface, a marketing software company. It rose 2½p after agreeing a 15p cash-and-shares offer from Alterian, leaving it at roughly its float price nearly four years ago. Alterian fell 12p to 148p.

DermaSalve Sciences rose 0.125p to 4¼p as it confirmed that it had agreed to make monthly payments to Trafalgar Capital, its creditor, in cash rather than shares.

Computacenter fell 19p to 182p on saying that it had not met revenue targets. Shore Capital, the stockbroker, fell 2¾p after saying that profitability would be lower in the first half.

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