The Irish-owned Horizon Computer Group is preparing to float on the Dublin stock market this autumn, The Irish Times has learned. The firm, headed up by Corkman Mr Samir Naji, has been expanding rapidly and would require capital if it wished to make medium and large-scale acquisitions.
The company had turnover for the year to the end of June of £95 million, according to industry sources. As a private company Horizon - it is owned by Mr Naji with Mr Charles Garvey, its general manager, listed as a shareholder - is not obliged to reveal its profits.
Horizon began in Cork in 1988, when according to a recent interview in Business & Finance magazine, Mr Naji's parents mortgaged their home to launch the business. The company is involved in technology systems integration, distribution services, training and consultancy. It developed a fruitful sales relationship with Apple in Cork, and eventually spun off this side of the business as Enterprise Business Solutions.
Revenues to June 1990 were £750,000; by 1994 they had almost reached £10 million, and £44 million by 1996. Staff levels have also soared, from eight in 1990 to 90 last year and 200 today. The company is now the leading provider of Unix systems in Ireland and lists among its customers Telecom Eireann and Motorola.
It has several subsidiary companies abroad, and has backed several start-up companies at home. Currently, Horizon's training operation has offices in Paris, Milan, Dusseldorf, London, Amsterdam, Dusseldorf and Madrid.
"Demand for quality training has been growing steadily in areas like telecommunications and distributed computing because of the expanding role of Internet-working," Mr Naji was quoted as saying in the magazine interview.
In July, Horizon bought Gericmar, a Dublin-based Hewlwtt-Packard and IBM personal computer distributor, and said it would merge the firm with its own distribution business which is called Clarity. Horizon said it expected the acquisition to push revenue from distribution to more than £80 million.
Although it is still listed as being headquartered in Cork, much of the company's business is now run from Dublin. Neither Mr Naji nor Mr Garvey were available for comment last night. The company's financial advisers in the flotation are expected to be the NCB/Ulster Bank group.
