Capita Group, the London congestion charge operator whose chairman resigned four months ago in the wake of personal loans he made to the Labour Party, has delivered a strong set of first-half profits.

In the six months to the end of June they rose almost a quarter on which the group boosted the dividend by almost 30 per cent. The shares hit their best for more than five years.

Rod Aldridge, who resigned on March 24, leaves the board at the end of this month and is being replaced by Eric Walters who has been as director for five years.

Mr Aldridge said: "Our businesses are in superb shape to deliver incremental growth and the market for Business Process Outsourcing opportunities continues to be extremely active. The board therefore anticipates delivering strong growth in 2007."

The group, which runs the computer systems behind London’s traffic congestion charging scheme, administers pensions schemes and manages properties, lifted revenue for the six months to the end of June by 23 per cent to £845 million and pre-tax profits by 24 per cent to £92.4 million.

The group said it had secured a significant volume of new business in the first half and lifted the dividend 20 per cent to 2.7p.

The shares rose 34.25p to 509p, up 7.2 per cent.

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