Ferrari Holdings Plc has finally won agreement for its proposed acquisition of Pericom Plc. Negotiations between the two companies began last month (CI No 1,371) and have now come to fruition. The offer is 53 UKP1 preference shares in Ferrari for every 100 ordinary shares in Pericom. Those Pericom shareholders wanting cash for their shares are being offered UKP1 for each of their Ferrari preference shares by Singer & Friedlander which means they will in effect get 53 pence for each of their Pericom shares. Ferrari is also proposing to issue a further 6m preference shares of UKP1 each to reduce the borrowings of the enlarged group and Singer & Friedlander (which already has a 35% stake in Ferrari) has offered to buy these shares. The acquisition is a done deal since Ferrari has irrevocable undertakings for the transaction from shareholders representing 54% of its issued share capital while Ron Cragg who holds 49% of the Pericom shares agrees to the deal. However, the only part of the Pericom business that Ferrari intends to keep is its maintenance activities which have a turnover of approximately UKP7m. When combined with Ferrari’s existing maintenance business the company expects revenues of UKP20m in the current financial year. The remaining Pericom businesses will be sold back to Ron Cragg (see below). Ferrari also took the opportunity to issue its end of year figures yesterday which reveal an extremely dynamic company with pre-tax profits up 256% to nearly UKP1.5m on turnover up 92% to UKP32m. Nevertheless, Bob Woodland, chairman of Ferrari, says these figures don’t do the group justice, since its current annual turnover is in the UKP60m region following the acquisitions of UCL Group Plc, Blue Chip Systems Group Plc and The Message Data Switching Division of Commercial Cable (UK) in the past year. He added that Ferrari’s strategic aim is to become a pre-eminent force in the UK facilities management and third party computer maintenance market, a strategy to which the acquisition of just one third of Pericom evidently contributes.
