De La Rue unveils £15m US buy
BANKNOTES printer De La Rue is to buy back up to £90m worth of its shares but will still have up to £200m to spend on acquisitions, chief executive Ian Much said today. He also announced the purchase of one of North America's largest suppliers of voting equipment, Sequoia Voting Systems, from Jefferson Smurfit for $23m (£15.8m).
Sequoia is expected to benefit hugely from the radical shake-up in US voting systems after the farcical events surrounding the so-called pregnant chads during November 2000's Presidential election.
Sequoia was not involved in that problem in Florida but more recently supplied £830,000 worth of its equipment to the London Borough of Newham for May's mayoral and local elections. After revealing a 16% rise in pre-tax profits to £90.6m in the year to March, Much warned that the current year was likely to see 'modest earnings progress'. It will have a lower share of National Lottery operator Camelot and will not benefit from the one-off effects of the introduction of the euro.
Last year De La Rue was called on to print an extra 500m euro banknotes at the last minute by the European Central Bank. It also services one-in-five automated cash machines across Europe and had to change all their cartridges.
Sales rose from £524m to £651m and earnings were 11% higher at 34.4p. The final dividend rises 7% to 9.2p.
