Jasmin Plc, the Nottingham-based electronics group that achieved fame with an unsponsored fund-raising under the late, somewhat lamented Business Expansion Scheme, floated last November on London’s Alternative Investment Market for a higher profile, rather than to raise any new money. The company had been around since 1969, but decided last year that it wanted more people to know about it, which makes the company’s extremely tardy reponse to our enquries about its results yesterday all the more difficult to understand. The figures themselves made for satisfactory reading, with pre-tax profits up 70% to #153,000, from turnover up 25% to #3.0m. The company is majority-owned by the directors and has about 600 small investors who came on board as the result of a Business Expansion Scheme in 1986, which raised #1.4m (CI No 633) and valued the company at about #4m. Jasmin designs and makes electronic systems including information, control and monitoring equipment for the transport industry and weapons simulators, as well as computer-based training equipment, mainly for the UK Ministry of Defence. Chairman Roger Plant said in his statement that no substantial contracts were completed in the six months to September 30, and as a consequence this half will receive an extra boost. Orders have been coming in thick and fast however, with one from General Electric Co and Alcatel SA’s GEC-Alsthom joint venture, to provide electronic passenger information systems for London Underground’s notorious Northern Line over a two to three year period. Plant said that the company had leaned heavily on its bankers at the end of the half, when several contracts coincided, causing large cash outflows. The company’s gearing is high, according to finance director Robert Denton and its main borrowing is in the form of a mortgage on its headquarters property. But Plant expected that the current banking arrangements would remain intact, bearing in mind the higher level of orders it has taken. No interim dividend will be paid.
