When Ian Hillier-Brook approached the board of Sintrom Plc offering to buy the company, he was rebuffed by the chairman Tom Dalzell, who has a substantial 60% shareholding. As a consolation, Hillier-Brook was offered the position of chief executive officer, which he accepted in February this year. He replaced Terry Cave who left Sintrom in January, after disagreements with Dalzell about company strategy and the speed with which Sintrom was growing. Cave was keen to expand by acquisitions, and he was looking to buy a continental operation. However, Sintrom’s disappointing year-end results showed net profits down by 60.7% to UKP465,000, on turnover up 21.5% at UKP33.6m (CI No 1,399), and Hillier-Brook says that acquisitions are out of the question in the short term. The ambitions are still there, and he doesn’t rule out future acquisitions in Germany and France, but the 10% of business generated there looks unlikely to increase for a considerable time. Of Sintrom’s UKP33.6m turnover, 49% came from distribution activities, 42% from networking, and 9% from services. In terms of profit, networking outstrips the other two with 58%, followed by services at 18%, and distribution at 18%. Sintrom focuses on networking from a base of three companies. Logic Replacement Technology or LRT, now called Sintrom Datanet, specialises in wide area network bridges. Online is a network installation company, and it is headed by a new managing director, Dick Hall, formerly UK managing director of Centronics. Microtechnology is a network systems house that also distributes DEC-compatible products. Hillier-Brook emphasises that actions have already been taken to cut costs and improve margins, and he is adamant that Sintrom won’t re-enter the manufacturing arena now that it has disposed of its Perex tape drive business for UKP1.35m (CI No 1,323). He also insists that Sintrom will not become a box-shifter like Frontline Distribution or Northamber Plc. Sintrom is to concentrate on added value networking and distribution, and Hillier-Brook cites the recent agreement with Emulex on its DEC-compatible disks and tape subsystems as an example (CI No 1,395). The group’s distribution arm, Sintrom Electronics, also distributes computer aided design and manufacturing software, electronic publishing products, and it has agreements with Research Machines and Robocom. Hillier-Brook says that he would like to expand Sintrom’s existing dealer network to reflect the company’s emphasis on training, support and maintenance, and he hopes to entice Autodesk’s dealers into the Sintrom fold. Sintrom’s third party maintenance arm, Sysmatic, is also involved in the DEC marketplace, and Richard Parkinson, UK general manager of Emulex, believes that the UK is where DEC’s maintenance activities are most vulnerable. On the next year, Hillier-Brook says that the first quarter has been very successful, and any future cost-cutting won’t affect staff numbers which will stay at around 250.
