The two surprises in De la Rue Plc’s announcement yesterday of proposals to most of sell its Crosfield Electronics subsidiary were the inclusion of Fuji Photo Flim Co along side Du Pont Co as one of the buyers, and the price – UKP235m is more than the unit had been expected to fetch, and will enable De La Rue, which wants to keep the Press Controls business, including Crosfield Ebway Inc, to take a net profit of UKP75m on the sale and cut its gross borrowings to UKP254m. The businesses being retained turn over about UKP20m and have been consistently profitable. The deal seems to stymie both Robert Maxwell and his 27%-owned Scitex Inc, which holds about 20% of the equity, having bought the Maxwell 15% and bought more – but less than it wanted – in the market. Also sidelined is Carlo de Benedetti, whose Sofigen Group has 5% of De La Rue. The banknote handling business – cash-handling mechanisms – that was the core of Crosfield, is now the core of the De La Rue Payment Systems Division. For Du Pont, the deal expands its presence in the UK graphics market, which it entered when it acquired Benchmark Technologies Ltd of Kingston last year. For Fuji, which has been working hard to diversify from its core photographic film business – it is now in floppy disk media – the move takes it into a field related its core business, colour imaging. The sale is conditional on both shareholder and regulatory approval – both here in the UK and internationally: shareholders will meet on August 3.
