Dublin-based Zamano, which completed its initial public offering on AIM last Wednesday closed the week at 25.5p, a price which values the company at £17.3m ( 25.6m).

Zamano works with mobile networks such as O2 and Vodafone to provide premium-rate text messaging services, ringtones and games. It had sales of 10m last year. In Ireland its customers include RTE, TV3, Setanta and Buy & Sell.

The company, which counts Enterprise Ireland and Quinlan Private Capital among its shareholders, is also active in the UK and Australia .

OLDCASTLE, the American subsidiary of CRH has acquired an aggregates business in Oregon - its third operation in the state.

The building materials firm has bought Egge Sand & Gravel for an undisclosed sum. However, the business includes a new $3.5m asphalt production facility, as well as a 260-acre aggregate site. The company employs 114 people. Owner Vern Egge, who has run the company for the past 40 years, said Oldcastle plans to grow Egge Sand & Gravel by between 30% and 35% over the next five years.

Oldcastle owns two other aggregates firms in Oregon - Klamath pacific and River Bend. Egge focused its business on providing aggregates and construction services in its local area.

Oldcastle has more than 13,000 employees in 30 states. In October, CRH finalised the 1bn acquisition of Atlantabased APAC. In recent weeks it has also signed deals to acquire two operators in China.

INSPIRED GAMING, the UK-based technology company founded by Irish dotcom pioneer Norman Crowley, took a 2.4m earnings hit over the Summer because of unusually good weather.

According to a trading statement issued by the company last week Inspired, which supplies content such as fruitmachine games from a central server to terminals in pubs and other venues, hit "challenging trading conditions" in the UK.

Good weather kept potential customers out of pubs and depressed gaming revenue. "Since the summer months, pub incomes have strongly recovered and are now tracking management's expectations, " the statement said.

Crowley, best known in Ireland for his role in founding the now defunct web design company Ebeon, said Inspired was looking forward to a strong end to the year and would deliver results in line with expectations. "We have a strong pipeline of opportunities for our software and digital content and are confident of making significant strategic and financial progress during the year, " he said.

HLB NATHANS, the accountancy firm, announced last week that it would merge with Cork accountancy firm O'Leary Lehane & Co. The new entity will be branded HLB Nathans and will be the 10th largest accountancy firm in Ireland, have 8 partners and more than 90 staff. Turnover at the combined firm was projected to exceed 10m, the company said.

HLB Nathans was founded in 1970 and specialises in SMEs and family-run businesses.

DDENIS O'BRIEN, the chairman of Digicel telecoms group, has agreed that Digicel will sponsor the South Pacific's equivalent of the Lions rugby squad.

The Digicel Pacific Islanders Rugby Union squad, picked from the best players from Fiji, Samoa and Tonga, will tour Wales, Scotland and Ireland later this month. Terms were not disclosed. The South Pacific squad face Ireland on November 26.

ENTERPRISE IRELAND hosted a construction industry dinner last week in London to support Irish firms competing for the more than £7Bn in construction contracts for the 2012 Olympic Games.

Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment Micheal Martin (below) spoke at the dinner. "In recent years, many Irish companies have contributed unprecedented amounts of time and revenue to the UK construction sector, as well as the UK economy as a whole, " he said. "These companies have not only enabled Irish and British construction industries to work together successfully for generations, but also helped Ireland to become one of the most vibrant economies in the world with a growth performance unmatched among industrialised countries. As a result, the building and construction industry now represents one of Ireland's leading sectors, the success of which has also allowed us to plan for events such as the 2012 Olympics."