Headland Group Plc’s profit warning on June 1 (CI 1,437) seems premature and understated in view of the appointment of administrative receivers last week. KPMG Peat Marwick McClintock is optimistic that the principal businesses, which one assumes does not include the bedevilled Mega Systems, will be sold as going concerns, and says that interest has already been shown. No details of liabilities have emerged from the 260-strong Headland, but KPMG emphasises that a speedy acquisition should prevent large job losses. Headland, established by Geoff Bristow and advised by Rob Wilmot, was founded on the Compsoft shell. It has undergone a series of reorganisations in an attempt to integrate its various acquisitions and focus on horizontal accounting software. The last rationalisation, whereby Compsoft, Mega and Multisoft were to be collapsed into one company trading under the Multisoft name, saw 90 redundancies, a reshuffling of the management team, and departure of the finance director.
