Colt's bolt from the blue

NEWS Colt Telecom, which provides managed network and ebusiness services to its customers, reported an 18 per cent increase in sales in the three months to 31 March 2002, beating analyst expectations. The firm's president and CEO, Peter Manning, said he was "encouraged by the number and size of orders from both new and current customers". Sales for the quarter hit £246.8m compared to £209.4m in 2001 while earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation were £9.8m. In his statement to investors, Manning added: "At the end of the quarter we had 11,593 directly connected network services customers and 1,628 ebusiness customers, increases of 52 per cent and 93 per cent respectively." The company also managed to increase its cash pile to £1.2bn.