Division heads for market

DIVISION Group, one of the world's leading 'virtual reality' technology companies, is to be launched on the stock market by Henry Cooke Lumsden, the Manchester broker, writes Neil Thapar.

The placing, expected in the next few weeks, has sparked considerable excitement in the City and is likely to value the company at about pounds 14m.

Earlier this year Henry Cooke brought Tadpole Technology, the portable workstations computer maker to the market. Since then Tadpole's shares have quadrupled.

Division, set up in 1989, is headed by Ian Barron, founder of Inmos, the company which invented the transputer - the computer on a chip.

Division has developed a complete virtual reality system based on personal computers, primarily for scientific applications. Customers include Glaxo and the Ministry of Defence.

In the year to 31 October it made an estimated loss of pounds 100,000 on sales of pounds 1m. The placing, at around 40p a share, will raise pounds 5m for the company.