Optim Group Plc, the Letchworth, Hertfordshire based turnkey systems house is looking to raise UKP2.4m of new money net of expenses through a placing on the Unlisted Securities Market. The company is placing 4.0m ordinary 10p shares – 34.0% of the enlarged equity – at 60 pence, valuing the company at UKP7.1m. Optim employs over 200 people and provides software for a number of vertical markets including hotels and leisure, retailing, manufacturing process control, office automation and field service management. Following losses of UKP1.8m and UKP197,000 in 1984 and 1985 respectively, the company showed profits of UKP301,000 and UKP342,000 in the last two years – on turnover of UKP6.2m and UKP7.9m respectively – and forecasts profits of UKP500,000 for the year to October 31, 1988 which would put it on a prospective price-earnings ratio of 11.7. Optim Computers Ltd came into being via a management buyout of Monotype Communications back in 1982 and originally marketed the Z80 microcomputers from Ontel. The business was financed by a private syndicate led by Mike Burden, ex-managing director of Singer Business Machines and Nixdorf UK, and John Richards, who was Monotype’s general manager. The following year saw a merger between Optim and MCS UK, which had been trading in England since 1976, achieving a turnover of UKP2.0m in 1982. The new company acquired the maintenance arm of Digico Ltd later in the same year. In 1984 the group ran into severe trading problems, mainly as a result of a decision to enter the general purpose computer market and three main board directors plus three directors of subsidiaries resigned that Autumn. The new management team made a decision to redirect the group back into its traditional service-orientated markets, a decision that has been met with some success. MCS Inc’s Dutch subsidiary, Optim BV, was acquired in 1985; Butel and Lange Computer GmbH’s maintenance business were acquired in 1987 and in February of this year the company acquired an ICL trader, QCL. The European head-office is based in Amsterdam and there are three further offices in Germany. Approximately 50% of turnover is derived from vertical markets and 36% from engineering and software support. In the current year approximately 85% of business is forecast to be from the UK and 15% from the rest of Western Europe. The company says that it plans to use the new money to help reduce its debt, and in due course to effect still further acquisitions. The placing is the first in London to be handled by Canada’s Continental Securities.
