Investors save Azlan's bacon

Distributor wins shareholder support for reflotation and rights issue.

Beleaguered distributor Azlan has won the backing of its investors to. go ahead with a proposed rights issue and reflotation of shares.

In an extraordinary general meeting, which took place on 27 October, 15 Azlan investors voted to increase the authorised share capital of the company. One said: 'There was a chance of voting to trash Azlan and lose money or voting to rescue it - investors are going to go for rescue.'

The share reflotation, which was originally due to go ahead more than two months ago (PC Dealer, 25 June), will now take place on 28 October.

Barrie Morgans, chairman and CEO of Azlan, said approval for both issues was passed by a show of hands. 'We are pleased that proceedings have reached this stage with both issues,' he said.

However, the distributor is not out of the woods yet, as Netscape has revealed that it is just one of the manufacturers which are currently in the process of reviewing their agreements with Azlan.

Steve Voller, UK managing director of Netscape, said the major concerns were about centralised purchasing and credit issues. 'Every single major supplier is looking at its Azlan agreement.'

Voller added: 'This is the last quarter of our financial year and we need to make sure that distributors have a full and complete credit line to meet our figures.'

Richard Pryor Jones, managing director of UK products at Azlan, said: 'Netscape is still a product we are taking across Europe and nothing has changed. A lot of people supply browsers - Netscape must find it hard to offer different things in the market.'

Former Azlan sales director James Maunder is involved in negotiations with the distributor over an anti-competitive dispute which, pending action expected this week, could see him held under an injunction.

Maunder accepted a position at distributor Landis last week.