Computer Management Group Ltd says it still has no plans to go public, despite a dashing performance in calendar 1986 that saw pre-tax profits almost double on turnover ahead for the twenty-third year in a row. The software and services company is wholly owned by employees and their close relatives and sees no reason to widen the market for its shares even though there would undoubtedly be strong City support for a flotation on a mid-20s historic price-earnings ratio. After only five years or so in a similar situation, British Freight Consortium has decided that the weight of shares from selling employees is such that its own internal market will not be able to mop them up much longer, and it therefore plans to get a quote for its shares – but there is no such problem at Computer Management. Director Nick Scholfield says that there have already been applications for 1.1m shares from what he termed eligible groups in 1987, and with general manager Ron White forecasting a further 20% profit growth this year, demand for the shares can only increase. In 1986, CMG produced pre-tax profits up 96% at UKP4.67m on turnover up 26% at UKP51.2m. White says the company is well on track for UKP6m pre-tax on sales of UKP65m this year. This, he says, will help it maintain its position as the most profitable company in the business – rivals in his estimation include BIS, CAP Group Plc, Systems Designers Plc and Hoskyns Plc – and will mean yet another boost for the shares which, valued by the company’s auditors and merchant bank, currently stand at UKP3.10, up from UKP1.80 last year. At present, around 65% of Computer Management’s 1,100 employees hold shares.
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