Tel-Me tells on results at PhoneLink

THE costs of launching Tel- Me, an electronic information service, pushed PhoneLink into a maiden pounds 1.76m loss for the year to March, writes Tom Stevenson.

So far Tel-Me has agreements with eight UK organisations including the AA, Thomson Directories and British Rail. For a fee of about pounds 300 a year plus individual call charges, users can connect their personal computers to telephone directories, check hotel availability, do company searches and get updates on the weather.

The shares rose 2p to 312p yesterday as the market continued to treat PhoneLink's results as an irrelevance. The loss before tax compared with a pounds 30,000 profit last time. There was a loss per share of 5p (0.1p profit).