There is speculation that Synapse Computer Services is about to be acquired after investment house Delimar has mopped up a 24.5% stake in the IBM software and services company. However Tony McGrath, Synapse’ marketing director, insists that the Delimar shareholding didn’t come as a surprise since the two companies had been in discussions to ascertain the latter’s intentions although he declines to elaborate on those plans. David Morehouse, Geoff Trendell and Jack Murphy are behind Delimar and the first two are former employees with Insight which distributes a database product for MRP II on the AS/400. Synapse plunged to a UKP249,000 loss earlier this year saying it was suffering from lack of US business, and when Bill Williams resigned from the posts of chairman and managing director, the group’s businesses were placed under the tighter control of a group board (CI No 1,403). At that time, Synapse said that its OS/VS Cobol conversion product and mid-range subsidiary, Beacon Management Services, were expected to make good contributions to recovery. Beacon Management, which was acquired in December (CI No 1,321), was Synapse’s first foray into the IBM mid-range arena, and McGrath says that the Delimar people have the sort of AS/400 experience that fits in with Beacon’s activities.