Psion Plc and Amstrad Plc yesterday confirmed that they were in talks that could lead to Psion paying not less than 200 British pence a share in shares for Amstrad, valuing the company at a minimum of 230m British pounds. First reaction may have been has Potter gone potty, but Psion founder and chairman Dr David Potter is a shrewd operator, and is thought to judge that he can derive significant value from Amstrad by adding cellular technology from the Dancall A/S Groupe Speciale Mobile digital cellular telephones maker to the Psion handheld computers, and by adding Psion products to the Amstrad Direct and Viglen Ltd direct sales operation. Meantime Viglen has shown itself to be a successful self-contained personal computer operation that would broaden the Psion base. The companies said Amstrad chairman Alan Sugar, who still holds about a third of the equity, would not sit on the board of the enlarged group if the deal went ahead: he is thought to be keen to devote more of his time to his English soccer club, Tottenham Hotspur Plc now that so much more money is flooding into elite Premier League soccer. Amstrad shares rose 37 pence to 185 pence on the news but the Psion share price wilted, falling 50 pence to 350p. The final price could be increased if Amstrad is successful in its court actions against Seagate Technology Corp and Western Digital Corp, which it alleges supplied it with faulty disk drives. Amstrad is between three and four times the size of Psion in terms of its turnover.
