Floated Azlan fails to take lion's share

Ailing distributor Azlan suffered an 80 per cent drop in value last week after it finally reinstated its shares on the London Stock Exchange after a four-month absence.

Azlan's shares were suspended on 13 June at 555p after it was first revealed that there were financial irregularities (PC Dealer, 18 June). However, within its first week of trading, the company's shares fluctuated wildly from a low of 48p on the first day of reflotation on 28 October to a high of 85p two days later. It had an overall average of 68.5p.

Richard Pryor-Jones, managing director of UK products at Azlan, said: 'We are delighted to be back and the share prices were in line with what we were expecting.' But he admitted: 'You also have the rights issue to take into consideration, with shares being sold off at 37p to raise the #24.2 million needed.'

One City broker said: 'The company has done as well as we hoped it would.

Not many of the shares have been traded, but people are not expecting it to do much at the moment.'

The broker also added that the turmoil which erupted on the London Stock Exchange on 28 October would have little effect on the overall performance of Azlan's stocks.

As part of its restructuring programme, the distributor has launched Azlan Express, an initiative aimed at targeting the small and medium enterprises (SME) market in conjunction with Bay, Cisco, 3Com and IBM.

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