Telemetrix Plc yesterday socked the market with a pre-tax loss of UKP2.4m on declining turnover, a cash call to shareholders, and plans to sell a majority stake in the company to Allied Electronics Corp of South Africa, and divestment of the Telemetrix Research unit. Don Sneddon, deputy chairman of Allied Electronics – Altron – is to become deputy chairman an joint chief executive following its subscription for 35m new shares at 21 pence – against a pre-suspension price of 33p. Telemetrix plans to increase the total new cash to UKP8.4m by making a one for-four rights issue to shareholders at the same price, 21 pence, and if all the rights are taken up, Altron will end up with 57.27% of the enlarged capital, but there is a provision that allows it to buy any of the shares not taken up by shareholders. Its aim is to divserify Telemetrix from its core graphics terminal business into a European scale graphics and telecommunications company, which makes plans to sell the Telemetrix Research Ltd somewhat ironic, since two of its activities are communications-related. Nevertheless the subsidiary is to be sold to Richaware Ltd, a company owned by former Telemetrix chairman Roy Cole, for UKP550,000, UKP231,694 of the total to be met by the writing off of inter-company liabilities. Richware has also agreed to pay Telemetrix a royalty on sales of its satellite modem, up to a maximum of UKP400,000. In the year to July 1987, the unit lost UKP270,000 on turnover of UKP1.18m, and employs 33 people developing high frequency communications systems, making the data modem for satellite communications, and testing equipment for UK manufacturers. All proposals are subject to shareholder approval. Telemetrix shares had been suspended pending the announcement (CI No 920).
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