Fibernet profit announcement causes shares to slide

The company aimed to raise £77m to fund the construction of an optical network in France. To raise the capital Charles McGregor, CEO of Fibernet, felt he had to pitch the rights issue at 600p on a 'four for every 15 shares held' deal. This was a 54 per cent discount to last night's price of 1328p. Today they are hovering around the 1130p mark after a quick slide.

Fibernet has been trying to steal a march on the slow roll-out of ADSL by building optical net facilities next to BT exchanges to gain access to the local loop. Today the company announced its success by posting pre-tax profits of £3.4m as compared to last year's loss of £4.6m.

Revenues trebled from £14.6m in 1999 to £41.8m this year. The company has a telecoms license for France and will be rolling out a network there similar to its UK operations.