FKI Babcock Plc finally dotted the is and crossed the ts on its acquisition of DRI Holdings Plc Thursday evening – and then went into purdah so that no-one was available to explain FKI’s plans for the UK’s biggest peripherals manufacturer. The price paid is a mere UKP1 up-front, but the plan is to sell DRI’s Winchester disk drive manufacturing business, and another UKP3m to UKP6m will be paid to the previous owners of DRI once this is complete, the sum depending on the price it brings in. DRI was valued at UKP22m when it was bought out from the British Technology Group in 1984; the Group retained 35% and Mercury Asset Management took 8%, the Prudential, British Gas Pension Fund, Legal & General and Gartmore each took about 6%, while management put up UKP220,00 for 4%. No figures have been given for 1987, when the company plunged into a loss, but in 1986, it made UKP163,000 pre-tax on UKP56.5m sales. If the disk drive business is sold, FKI will be left with the Newbury display terminal and the DRI printer manufacturing subsidiaries. One of the fast-growing US Winchester manufacturers might be interested in European capacity, and the unit may also be of interest to one of the major Japanese manufacturers.
