The Bradford, West Yorkshire-based international systems and services group Microvitec Plc appears to have got something of a bargain with its UKP2.43m acquisition of Perex Ltd (CI No 2,562). With net assets at the end of 1993 – an isolated bad year for Perex – totalling UKP1.3m and around UKP600,000 cash in the bank, it seems a relatively low price to pay for the Reading, Berkshire-based supplier of touch screen and data storage products – which was once the tape drive arm of the former Sintrom Plc. Microvitec envisages the complete integration of Perex into the group’s display systems business, which should enhance Microvitec’s presence in the touch screen market in Germany and the UK. The UKP1.98m acqusition of Haydock, Lancashire-based Justfree Ltd, trading as Layer One, places more emphasis on Layer One’s future performance. With just 28 employees, Layer One’s staff is its principal asset, and in order to help keep them on board, Microvitec has opted for an initial consideration of UKP775,000, comprising UKP250,000 cash and the rest in shares. Provided that pre-tax profits hit UKP890,000 by June 30 1996, a deferred consideration of a UKP1.2m cash and shares mix will be paid. Layer One’s Ethernet products are of particular interest to Microvitec, as is a wireless local area network product that Microvitec plans to market in the US. Microvitec is confident that by opening up new markets for Layer One in the south of the UK, as well as overseas, Layer One can be integrated into the Microvitec group, despite the acquisition being weighted so heavily towards the earn-out. In a separate announcement, Microvitec Multimedia, a division of Microvitec Plc, is to provide MPEG encoded video material as part of British Telecommunications Plc’s interactive television market trial (CI No 2,545). Microvitec will deliver its first material this week or next, with the trial due to begin in 2,500 UK households in mid-1995.
