Digital partners join to spur flotation plan

Two Digital resellers, Keltec and Progress, are merging their operations to bring forward their flotation plans on the UK stock exchange.

Keltec is the larger partner, with a turnover of #23 million last year compared with Progress' #11 million. It was Keltec's senior executives who retained the top positions in the merged entity, which has been renamed Keltec Progress.

Keltec chairman Brian Griffiths and managing director John Fison will retain their titles, while Progress managing director and founder Chris Davis will take responsibility for operations and services. Fison will handle sales, marketing and personnel.

The merged operation will be located in Keltec's offices, with staff at Progress' Chesham headquarters moving to its partner's Bracknell head office. Staff at the Progress office in Burton, West Midlands, will move to a new Keltec site in Birmingham.

Fison outlined the plan to bring the company to the market within five years, arguing that resellers need to be big to remain competitive with larger dealers.

Keltec has recently expanded out of its Digital-only business and became a directly managed Sun partner on 1 October. Fison admitted the takeover of Digital by Compaq was an additional cause for concern.

'There is the threat of competition from the likes of Computacenter and Morse now,' he said. 'That's another reason why we needed to expand.'