The road may be littered with the corpses of failed adventures, but the rewards for the few that have succeeded have been glittering, and Rolfe & Nolan Computer Services Plc, London, is embarking on the US acquisition trail, putting up $500,000 for new shares representing 19.9% of the enlarged equity in privately-held Chicago-based Brokerage Systems Inc, which supplies back office accounting administration and management systems to financial institutions in North America, operates a service bureau in New York and has expanded into the Pacific region. Rolfe & Nolan also has an option to buy the balance of the shares in Brokerage Systems, which can be exercised at any time up to May 28 1993, the price being either $3.5m or a figure determined by a formula based on pre-tax profit for the years ending November 1992 and 1992, which can be no more than $5m and no less than $1.2m. The payments will be made mainly in new Rolfe & Nolan shares, and the UK company has a big incentive to ensure that the acquisition goes well – if it fails to take up its option, Brokerage shareholders will have the right to buy back the 19.9% for a nominal sum. In the year to November 30, the company made a loss of $640,000 on turnover of $5.6m because its new RISC-based system was delayed. Rolfe & Nolan will also replace the company’s existing banking facilities with a loan of $615,000.
