British Regional Air Lines Group, one of the largest regional airlines in Europe with extensive Britain-Ireland scheduled services, is expected to be valued at nearly £100 million sterling when it is floated on the London stock market next week.

The flotation is by way of a Dresdner Kleinwort Benson placing of 40.7 million new and existing shares at 150p. Proceeds will be used to fund the purchase of new aircraft, repay an existing loan and provide additional working capital to develop new routes.

The group operates two airlines. British Regional Airlines operates a network of 70 scheduled services under a British Airways franchise agreement and Manx Airlines provides services from the Isle of Man.

More than 12 scheduled services are operated daily - up to four times daily on some routes - between key British regional airports such as Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh and seven Irish airports: Belfast, Derry, Waterford, Cork, Shannon, Knock and Dublin.

Mr Mike Bathgate, the group's operations director, said the UK-Irish scheduled services were an important part of the network and have been a significant contributor to the group's growth. At this stage, however, there are no plans to expand the British-Irish services.

The prospectus for the flotation details growth in pre-tax profit from £1.34 million to £4.21 million during the two years to December 31st, l997, on turnover up from £118 million to £165 million. Passenger numbers increased from 104,000 to 154,400 during the same period. Occupancy rates improved from 60.0 per cent to 63.8 per cent providing significant scope to increase passenger numbers using existing aircraft capacity.

Although 1998 financial results will be adversely affected by financing and crew training costs on the introduction of new aircraft, directors are confident the group will achieve "good progress for 1998 as a whole and is well positioned for growth there after".