ITG £23m cash call to fund growth

ITG Group, a Dublin-based credit card processor being renamed Alphyra, yesterday revealed plans to raise 36.2m euros (£22.9m) for acquisitions and to expand its network.

The fundraising will be carried out through a placing of 8 million shares and an open offer at 5 euros (316p) each, and has been fully underwritten by Goodbody Stockbrokers and Insinger Townsley. Shares in the company, which are listed in London, closed down 0.5 per cent yesterday at 327.5p.

ITG, which supplies software and hardware to enable secure electronic financial transactions, plans to use much of the cash on rolling out its payment terminal network across Europe. The two-year long expansion will start in France and Germany and is estimated to cost around 26m euros.

However, ITG also said it was considering a potential acquisition of a company "in the electronic transactions sector within Europe". While the terms of that deal were still being finalised, ITG said the deal would cost around 10m euros. "The directors believe the group is well positioned to take advantage of growth within the global electronic transaction arena. Specifically this growth is taking place within two key areas in which the group has core competencies," it said.

The company also said it was in discussions with "a number" of European prepaid cellular operators with a view to providing them with its phone top-up services.

ITG recorded a pretax profit of £9m in the six months to 31 October, up from £38,000. Sales rose to £56.5m from £25.5m.