Computacenter pair to make £90m in Dealogic float

Dealogic, the financial data and software company, yesterday announced plans to list on the stock market in a move that will add some £90m to the £300m fortunes of the Computacenter founders, Peter Ogden and Philip Hulme.

The pair, who co-founded Dealogic with Simon Hessel in 1983 with just £30,000, will each have a stake in Dealogic worth about £45m, if the business floats on the AIM at the top end of expectations next month to value it at £180m.

Mr Hessel will pocket up to £27m from selling half of his 30 per cent stake. Mr Ogden, the non-executive chairman of Dealogic, and Mr Hulme will each have stakes of about 25 per cent in the newly listed company but have pledged not to sell their shares until next year.

Tom Fleming, who took over as chief executive last year, will have a 15 per cent stake in the listed company, worth up to £27m. Mr Hessel, 47, has been a non-executive on the board since Mr Fleming, who had run the business in the US, took over. All the shares available to new investors will come from his share disposal.

"For the past few years we have been consolidating the company in to a single Dealogic brand. Floating is the natural culmination of that process and we wanted to be able to incentivise staff with shares," Mr Fleming said. He added that he was "ecstatic" that Mr Hessel was staying on the board and would remain a major shareholder. "It was a case that this was the right thing for the business to do, but we are all so committed to the business that none of us were really willing to let go of our shares. If Simon had not stepped forward, I don't know who would have," Mr Fleming said.

Dealogic does not plan to raise funds through the listing. The company employs more than 300 people, who will enjoy a stake of about 8 per cent. It is best known for supplying software for bond and share trading but it also compiles data on merger and acquisitions, floats and equity issues for the City. It made profits last year of £12m and is expecting to benefit from a pick-up in the investment banking sector. Its float is also a signal of the growing confidence in technology stocks after their crash in 2000.

Mr Hulme, a former management consultant, launched Computacenter shortly before setting up Dealogic. Last year it had sales of nearly £2bn. He and Mr Ogden floated the company in 1998, and Mr Hulme cashed in £33.5m of shares in the business. He donated the proceeds to charity. Mr Ogden counts motor racing among his other business interests and was part of the consortium that recently bought Brands Hatch and three other motor racing tracks.