In a statement issued last month, IPT - which was taken public on the Alternative Investment Market by chief executive Lionel Thain in 2004 - said it was "in preliminary discussions with certain parties which may or may not lead to an offer being made for the company".
Following the statement, the price of shares in IPT rose by 23 per cent. Investment dealer Canaccord Adams and investment banker Petsky Prunier LLC are advising the firm. A further announcement is to be made "in due course", said the company.
The announcement followed the news that eCircle had hired IPT's Simon Bever as business development director. At IPT, Bever led MyMortgageKey, IPT subsidiary Every Investor's mortgage lead-generator tool.
IPT senior sales consultant Austen Keep also defected to eCircle, joining the firm as senior account manager.
IPT had suffered a lacklustre first half of the current financial year due, it claimed, to a technology-related problem, but revenues for the half-year ended 30 June were expected to reach around £15m, up from £9.8m in 2006.
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