2. Public plunge
16 May 1998
In Norris’ fourth year in the hotseat, Computacenter became the largest IT company ever to float on the London Stock Exchange.
The move valued the Hatfield-based giant at £1.1bn (with founders Philip Hulme and Peter Ogden holding onto a 46% joint holding).
Today, some 67% of Computacenter’s UK employees have stock in the company, Norris said in September as he talked about how its public ownership has “helped our business culture”. It has distributed £1.2bn to shareholders in that time.
“I think we’ve created around 50 millionaires through stock with Computacenter’s people. I’m proud of that,” he said.
Norris characterised Computacenter as a “pseudo public-pseudo private” company due to the influence Hulme and Ogden exert to this day.
“I can do things most public companies can’t do,” he said.
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