Kao Corp, the $4,000m Japanese conglomerate that was established in 1890 as a soap manufacturer, and subsequently moved into the production of magnetic technologies and floppy disks, has acquired Protoscan Europe Plc for an undislosed sum. Based in St Ives, Cambridgeshire, the 13-year old company specialises in the copying of data onto magnetic media. It duplicates software onto 3.5, 5.25 and 8 floppy disks, provides turnkey software pack production, and has bulk replication facilities for runs of up to 100,000 diskettes. Kao, which recently established a $120m manufacturing facility in Spain (CI No 1,329), has a range of floppy disks, and claims to have introduced a 4Mb floppy in the US. It also manufactures 2 data and video disks and digital audio tape cassettes. The acquisition of a UK manufacturing facility means that Kao has production bases in the UK, mainland Europe, the US and Japan. Protoscan, which employs 32 staff and believes it is the only disk replicator in the UK to be seeking BS5750/ISO 9000 certification, will be known as Kao-Protoscan Plc from September 1.
