Delphi Group Plc’s well-flagged acquisition turned out to be rather less than that – a strategic investment, the target being Groupe Decan SA in France. The London body shop and consultant paid 3.4m pounds for a 13.75% indirect stake in Decan – it has actually bought 25.1% of something called GD, a holding company that holds a 55% stake in Groupe Decan. In addition, GD owns two properties with a book value of 1m pounds, which are solely used by Decan for its operations. GD’s unaudited net assets as at December 31 amounted to 2.5m pounds after adjusting for goodwill. Decan, which was founded in 1989, offers computer systems and services including client-server, systems integration, communication and document management. Its customer list includes Alcatel Alsthom SA, France Telecom SA, HewlettPackard Co and Renault SA. It targets the telecommunications, aerospace, energy, services and transport sectors, which together account for some 70% of group revenues. In the year to June 1996, it did 1.7m pounds pretax on sales of 15.5m pounds; net assets that that date stood at 2.2m pounds after adjusting for goodwill. The company listed on the Paris Second Marche in November.
