Hungry P&P Plc yesterday announced plans to take its first step up into the Unix market with the acquisition of Perrin Systems Ltd, which distributes Hewlett-Packard Co workstations, its Unix minicomputers, and Informix products for Hewlett-Packard machines. P&P has agreed to pay UKP3.5m, to be satisfied by the issue of 1.555m new shares, 1.467m of which are being placed at 215 pence a time. P&P will pay up to UKP1m more provided Perrin turns in gross profit of at least UKP1.485m in the first year after acquisition. The acquisition is to change its name to P&P Power Systems Ltd and will become the core of P&P’s onslaught onto the Unix market. The company did UKP739,000 pre-tax on sales of UKP6.3m in the year to August 31 last and its growth rate can be gauged from unaudited figures suggesting that it did UKP423,000 pre-tax on UKP4.8m in the seven months to March 31 – and its second half is traditionally the stronger of the two periods. Net assets are warranted at not less than 551,000 and the firm employs 26.
