Maddox to buy Wakebourne

MADDOX Group, the cables to marine repair business, is placing 206 million new shares to raise pounds 16.5m for the purchase and development of the Wakebourne Group computer services company.

Maddox is paying a total of pounds 13.3m. Of that, pounds 10m will be paid in cash and shares and pounds 3.3m will be used to pay off Wakebourne's mezzanine debt. Maddox will use the rest of the money raised to reduce group borrowings.

Williams de Broe, Maddox's broker, estimates that Wakebourne will add pounds 1.25m to Maddox's pre-tax profits in the current financial year, and pounds 3.5m in 1993. It is correspondingly raising its forecast for the group to pounds 3.7m in 1992 and pounds 3.05m in 1993.

Operating profits at Wakebourne, which was briefly owned by Atlantic Computers before it went into administration in April 1990, have increased from pounds 450,000 in 1988-89 to pounds 2.4m in 1990-91. Williams de Broe estimates that operating profits for 1991-92 are pounds 2.6m.

Hugo Biermann, executive chairman of Maddox, said the computer services business was growing quickly. The number of personal computers sold worldwide increased by 12 per cent in 1991 and 15 per cent in 1992.

Maddox shares fell 0.75p to 8p.