Commenting on Sanderson Electronics Plc’s eighth consecutive record year, Neil Ratcliffe, Sanderson’s marketing director, attributed part of the company’s success in the current economic climate to the fact that Sanderson saw the recession coming and consequently battened down the hatches last November. Sanderson reported a respectable 10% growth in pre-tax profits up to just over UKP3m on turnover that grew by 19% to top UKP14m. Yet to the outsider the company may appear something of a hotchpotch. Sanderson currently operates in the UK, USA, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Hong Kong. The Sanderson UK Group owns 55% of General Automation Ltd; acquiring 55% of Sanderson CFL in August from Ferrari Holdings plc; and also owns Cotswold Computers Ltd and Insight Terminals Ltd. Sanderson also has 49% stake in General Automation Inc of Anaheim, California and a 27% stake in SGA Pacific Ltd, while General Automation also owns 51%. According to Ratcliffe each of the divisions operates in different markets but always with the same Pick-based database and will, in the future, use the same General Automation-based hardware Sanderson CFL currently uses Bull and NCR hardware but will gradually migrate users to the General’s hardware. Ratcliffe says 1991 will be another year of growth.
