NCC's first-half revenues up thanks to "stand-out performance" in US

Revenues were up 15% to £62.3m on the back of decent growth in the US where turnover grew 41% on a constant currency basis.

However, profits before tax decreased to £10.6m from £11.1m, driving earnings per share down from 4.2p to 4p.

Assurance order books improved to £29.8m from £23.8m and revenues rose 20% to £46.9m.

Its Escrow software division remained the cornerstone of the group’s profitability and cash generation, with revenues up 4% to £15.4m.

Chief executive Rob Cotton said: "Both the Escrow and assurance businesses have seen strong organic growth in revenue and profitability, with a particularly stand-out performance by our US operations."

NCC said earlier this week that it had spent £14.9m buying the Belgium- and Luxembourg-based Open Registry group of domain services companies, which provide backend registry operations to brand customers, registrar and trademark validation services.

“The recent acquisition of the Open Registry group of businesses, now means that in the very dynamic and growing domain markets, we can provide a complete suite of secure services to our corporate clients around the world," Cotton said.

Shares were up 1.25% to 202.5p on Thursday at 15:03.