SHARES of Pace Micro, the maker of television set-top boxes, surged more than 60 per cent yesterday as it ended years of investor frustration by striking a lucrative agreement in the United States.

The Yorkshire-based company, a repeated source of profit warnings in recent years, has sold between $375 million (£206 million) and $500 million of boxes to Comcast, America’s leading cable company.

The deal sent shares in Pace up 24p to 60p, in an afternoon session reminiscent of the height of the dot-com boom, as investors digested a deal that ended a six-year search by the company for a US partner.

Comcast will purchase the boxes, which decode digital television signals, over three years. The American company has also agreed to license Pace’s software and co-develop future television technology with the UK company.

Pace has been running up losses pursuing a deal in the US for the past six years. It had taken so long to win a major customer that many investors had long lost faith in the business.

Five years ago Pace was valued at just over £2 billion. Prior to yesterday’s announcement its market value had slumped to only £81 million.

The company issued its most recent profit warning in December, after admitting that weak sales in Europe meant that it would miss profit targets for the current year, which ends this month.

In January Pace was fined a record £450,000 for breaching Stock Exchange listing rules. The company was judged to have failed to have kept the market informed in the run up to a severe profits warning in March 2002 — in a year in which the company issued warnings on no less than five occasions.

John Dyson, chief executive, yesterday said: “Overall, today’s announcement provides a solid foundation for the company’s future US business, both with Comcast and other US cable companies, and helps underpin Pace’s existing expectations for the coming financial year.”

Last year Pace turned over £239.9 million, after selling 2.2 million set-top boxes. The company made a pre-tax profit of £3.9 million. If the sales to Comcast are evenly spread over the three-year period, the contract will add £70 million to Pace’s annual turnover.