Misys Plc, the big UK financial software house, became the first IT company to move into the blue chip Financial Times 100 share index – a move of significant importance for the industry and the stock market as a whole. The level of the FT 100 is taken as an indicator of the stock market’s – and indeed the nation’s – vitality. But since it is dominated by venerable, and often extremely dull financial institutions, it has lacked the vitality of markets in the US and Asia. The addition of Misys, and other IT companies that are sure to follow in its wake, will provide a significant boost. In addition, it will also encourage the slowly developing venture capital market in the UK by showing the enormous rewards on offer when IT companies succeed. At present, the sector can do no wrong. An IPO by services company Computacenter was 12 times over-subscribed after the price had been pitched at the top of the range at 670p putting a 1.3bn pound value on its value. The shares jumped to 830p in early trade – a hefty 160 pence per share premium over the offer price. Though they settled back to 770 pence, the IPO turned about 30 employee shareholders into millionaires. Computacenter’s founders, Philip Hulme and Peter Ogden, are sitting on stakes valued at more than 300 million pounds – despite selling a small holding and donating shares worth some 63 million pounds to a charitable trust. Hulme and Ogden, who have reduced their joint holding to 45.6% from 53%, met in Harvard doing their MBAs and set up Computacenter in 1981.
