Shares in Iomart surged more than 13% yesterday after the Scottish internet specialist revealed the sale of its online business directory, Ufindus, to BT for £20m in cash.

Shares in Iomart surged more than 13% yesterday after the Scottish internet specialist revealed the sale of its online business directory, Ufindus, to BT for £20m in cash.

Under the terms of the agreement, some 300 jobs - most of them in Lancashire and Cumbria - will transfer to BT, leaving Iomart with 200 or so remaining employees for its other units.

The reinvented dotcom-era survivor, which had employed more than 500 workers in Scotland and the north-west of England, said it had decided to sell Ufindus because the operation was "non-core" to its hosting and managed service strategy.

Shares in Glasgow-based Iomart climbed 4p, to 49.5p yesterday.

The company said it would use the proceeds of the sale to help fund the expansion of its managed web-hosting business, Easyspace, and its data centre operations, "both of which are expected to perform well in the current market environment".

Angus MacSween, Iomart's chief executive, last year told The Herald that its main growth driver had been the continued progress in Ufindus, but that he was also "particularly pleased" with the company's entry into the data centre market. Last year it spent £4.5m on the acquisition of a controlling 51% in Easyspace, formerly Ezee DSL.

Iomart, whose customers include Stagecoach and Strathclyde Police, operates data centres in Glasgow, Nottingham, Leicester and Leeds, as well as a new, high-specification centre in the heart of the City of London.

The company's annual results are scheduled to be published on July 28.