Companies: BVC    RGO    TPH   

There’s been plenty for investors to get their teeth into in the technology sector recently, with techMARK listed BATM Advanced Communications winning out as a successful bidder for a major deal with a mystery leading telecom supplier, beating off leading rivals in the process. News of the deal, thought by CEO Dr Zvi Marom to be ‘potentially, by far, the largest in the history of the company’, sent the shares 10.3 per cent higher to 32p. On trading, the company announced strong sales for the second half of the calendar year to date, running well ahead of 2004.

On AIM, 2ergo delighted followers with results for the year to August, a fifth successive year of triple digit sales growth. Joint managing director Neale Graham said profits had powered ahead by 116 per cent to £1.6 million on sales lifted 107 per cent to more than £23 million. Impressively, forecasts were upgraded three times during the year, and the numbers beat the latest estimates in the market.

Tech-watchers are also sitting up and taking notice of Telephonetics, the speech recognition and computer telephony group that reversed into Leptis Magna in July. As well as clinching a first ever deal with the NHS, the company has won a six year deal with UCI (Ireland), worth £820,000, to supply its speech recognition information and booking service to all its cinemas in Eire. UCI (Ireland) is the Irish cinema chain owned by private equity player Terra Firma, which also owns UK cinema giant Odeon/UCI.