Float to put pounds 30m tag on ShareLink

DAVID JONES, founder and chief executive of ShareLink Investment Services, is set to become a millionaire when the telephone-based stockbroker is floated at the end of this month, writes John Willcock.

ShareLink's pathfinder prospectus for the offer and placing of ordinary shares at 5p each was published yesterday, and the group is expected to be valued at over pounds 30m. The current management bought the company for pounds 7m in May 1992 from the founding institutional shareholders, BT and Albert E Sharp, the Birmingham stockbroker.

Mr Jones invested pounds 4,000 in ShareLink when he founded the company in 1987 and is likely to sell about a fifth of his 20 per cent stake after the flotation. Nearly 50 other ShareLink staff own about 30 per cent.

ShareLink plans to raise pounds 5m of new money through the float, which will be ploughed into building the business. Roughly half the shares will be placed with institutions, the other half offered to the public.