High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire-based Telemetrix Plc, majority owned by Allied Electronics Pty Ltd of Johannesburg, has kept to its strategy of growth by acquisition, reporting a 40% increase in trading profits for the year to December 31 on turnover that was up by 44%. The impressive trading performance was swamped at the pre-tax level by interest costs of UKP600,000 in 1990 – the result of the acquisitions, against UKP900,000 positive interest income in 1989. Restructuring costs in 1990 amounted to UKP668,000. In a move to reduce costs and dispose of the company’s valuable facility in Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, Telemetrix has announced that it has merged its graphics and displays activities with its data communications business to form a single Information Systems Division. The merger of the two divisions has already entailed 70 job losses, added to 10 redundancies at High Wycombe and a further scheduled head count reduction of 40 to 50. In its restructured form, Telemetrix is now directed towards two key areas – electronic components and information systems. The group’s components activities cover the UK, continental Europe, US and the Far East – the UK accounted for UKP22m of revenues in 1990, continental Europe for UKP12m, the US for UKP24m and the Far East for UKP7m. And new chairman Cyril Newnham points out that the US contribution to the results was hard hit by the current strength of sterling against the dollar. Outside the UK, representation is through recent acquisition Valor (CI No 1,480), a miniaturised local area network components provider, and semiconductor supplier Zetex, which reported 9% increased revenues for the year. In the UK, Component Trading and Zetex form Telemetrix’ electronics activities. The new Information Systems business is focused solely on Europe – in the UK, Trend comprises Trend Datalink, Torus, a Service division, and the graphics and displays operations Westward, Expert Graphics, and DigiVision, and Graphics Technology Group. On the continent, Trend is so far made up of Westward, the Norwegian Rasterex and Torus, with further developments planned for the future. In the US, said Newnham, the acquisition of Valor increased Telemetrix’ stake in GTI Corp to 65% – GTI Corp turned in net profits up 18% on revenues up 31% for 1990 – in the current year, Valor’s revenues are said to be approaching half of GTI’s total business. Gearing at the year end was just over 35%, although the chairman says this has come down in the last two months – the disposal of the Tewkesbury facility is expected to improve gearing in the near future. As a measure of confidence in Telemetrix’ prospects, the board recommended a dividend increase of 20%.
