IT recruiter Lorien has announced its intention to sell its consulting operation to Anite Group.

Shareholders will vote at an EGM on 11 February to approve the £4.5m deal, which would give Lorien’s board the financial clout to buy back up to 10% of the shares in the company and reduce its borrowings.

Anite is a business services group, which sold its IT recruitment division last year.

Lorien Consulting returned a profit of £306,000 in 2000 from a turnover of £7.9m, after scaling down operations in 1998.

A statement released earlier this month said that Lorien Consulting, which employs more than 70 people, is not big enough to compete in its markets and needs Anite's investment to allow it to expand.

Group finance director Chris Hinton said the ability to purchase the shares would allow the company to maintain its stock market value.

He said: ‘We currently believe our share price is undervalued. If there is anybody who does not want to keep hold of them it will give us the opportunity to buy them back without damaging our market value.’

A statement said that Lorien’s performance had improved in the second half of the financial year, after the company recorded pre-tax losses of £0.8m in 2000.