Shares in telephone services and computer group ITG jumped almost 9 per cent on results showing a sharp rise in diluted earnings per share. The shares rose from €6.80 to €7.40.

Fully diluted earnings per share were 30.2 cents compared with a loss of 1.9 cents. The company said it would not be prudent to pay any dividend "given the substantial investment being made in Europe".

Headline profits were boosted by a gain of €10.4 million (£8.2 million) on the sale of part of its holding in Orbiscom.

Including the exceptional gain, pre-tax profit rose to €9.07 million (£7.14 million) from €38,000 in the six months to October 31st, 2000. Excluding this gain, profit before interest dropped from €1.28 million to €400,000 (£315,026). Group sales grew by 122 per cent to €56.5 million (£44.5 million) from €25.5 million. The sales growth is attributed to a strong performance from electronic transactions, voice and data divisions.

In the electronic transactions division, sales rose by more than 357 per cent to €22.4 million. The company says this has been driven largely by successful delivery of the pre-paid cellular top-up strategy with Digifone in Ireland and Vodafone in Britain, together with the Ulster Bank processing alliance.

"It bodes well for our European expansion plans," the interim statement says. Sales in the voice and data division grew by 65 per cent to €34.1 million. This is attributed to a strong performance in its communications, computers and payphone businesses.

Benefits also came from the cross-selling efforts through the bundling of products and services from the individual businesses.

The company made three acquisitions in three countries over the past six months - Targeted Transaction Managed Service in Britain, Getronics Transaction and Card Services in the Netherlands and Genidata in Sweden.