Office & Electronic Machines Plc, where there are several large minority shareholders including Olivetti and the Hillsdown group, which once gave rise to active takeover speculation, is in deep trouble: the London SE company lost UKP8m last year after taking a UKP4m write-off on its white hope, the AT Plus word processor, on declining turnover, and says that it has incurred further losses in the first half of this year after closing three sites at a cost of 160 jobs, bringing total employment down to 280 people; it hopes that profits in the second half will more than wipe out the losses in the first half; figures are in Company Results inside.
