Murray stands to make £50m from ITG sale

PC World founder Jan Murray will make his second fortune if shareholders accept the £146m offer for Internet Technology Group (ITG) made last week by US ISP Concentric Networks.

Murray, who founded ITG with the money he made from selling PC World to Dixons six years ago, stands to make about £50m from the deal. AIM-listed ITG is the parent firm of Global Internet and GX Networks, both of which have 100 resellers for its internet access and hosting services.

Peter Venmore, director of Global Internet, said merging with Concentric would pave the way for expansion into Europe and the introduction of more products and add-on services for its partners to sell.

Although the offer represents only a five per cent premium on ITG's market price at the time of the announcement, it is vastly higher than its value before rumours of an impending takeover started circulating in August.

Murray could add to his millions with his proposal to underwrite RedWave, a firm to be spun-off from ITG's non-ISP assets.

RedWave will own ITG's 75 per cent stake in Wave Systems, a developer of micro-payment systems for the internet.