Compel Group Plc, Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, supplier of personal computer and Unix based computer systems and services to private companies and the public sector, is planning to float in September, though the number of shares and the target price has not yet been decided. The company will also then announce figures for the year to June 30, with pre-tax profits of UKP2.1m, up 241.4%, against a period that saw major restructuring at a cost of UKP219,000, on turnover of UKP54.5m, up 24.6%. The restructuring combined the company’s semi-autonomous service providers into a single unit with a single strategy and name. Compel is manufacturer-independent and has as its principal markets client-server systems, networked personal computers and workstations, and offers hardware, operating systems, standard software and services, including consultancy, design, specification, cabling, installaton, training, support, maintenance, network management, project management and facilities management.
Late 1970s
It was set up in the late 1970s to provide short-term rental of computer terminals to UK companies, and expanded to include other computer peripherals, selling computer equipment and establishing a maintenance business. In 1986, it was bought by Dataserv Inc, the computer leasing and services company, for its maintenance operation, but Dataserv was then bought by BellSouth Inc. In 1987, Neville Davis, chairman, led a management buyout of the hardware supply business, financed by directors, management and employees, 3i Group Plc and Lloyds Development Capital Ltd, holding 36%, 14% and 50% respectively. Under the terms of the buy-out, Compel was precluded from employing field engineers to carry out computer maintenance for two years, and thereafter the company moved into maintenance with several acquisitions: Xios, Slough, in 1990, and in 1992 Hill International Ltd, in Newcastle and Johnson Microcomputers of Camberley. The flotation, by way of a placing with institutional investors and priority options for directors, managers and employees, will be sponsored and underwritten by Societe Generale Strauss Turnbull Securities Ltd. The company has customers in industry, commerce, finance, the professions, media and the public sector and has decided to float to raise its stature in its core and potential customer base, as it is now of a suitable size. The flotation will raise UKP11m, half of it new money, and this will be used to reduce exposure of its venture capitalists to 20% or less, and for financing future development, though the company has no plans for acquisitions or diversification. The flotation will also increase incentive effects of the company’s executive and employee-based share option scheme and will not alter the firm’s current workforce ownership ethos.
