Abacus, the UK-based distributor, has confirmed that it has been the target of a takeover offer from more than one company.

Against a background of falling sales the distributor told the stock market today that: “It has received a number of proposals, which may or may not lead to an offer being made for the Company.”

The fact that the company has appointed HSBC bank as financial adviser for a possible sale, indicates the advanced nature of the process.

“The Board emphasises that all proposals remain subject to a number of conditions, including due diligence and as such there can be no certainty that an offer will be forthcoming,” said the company statement.

In May, the distributor, which also owns the Trident Displays, TDC and Abacus Embedded brands, said that trading conditions had been challenging since the beginning of the year, particularly throughout Europe during the summer months when sales were lower than anticipated.

“There has been no compensating pick up of sales in September, with the consequence that the Board now anticipates full year sales will be slightly lower than during 2007 and below its previous full year expectation,” said Abacus, today.

No companies have been named but the potential buyer is most likely to be one of the large US-based broadliners such as Avnet, Arrow, Future or Nu Horizons.

Its franchises include some of the industries biggest brands such as Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics, Toshiba and Tyco.

Sign-up for the ElectronicsWeekly.com newsletters
Daily Latest [Daily]	Weekly roundup [Weekly]	Mannerisms [Weekly]	Circuits [Fortnightly]	Made By Monkeys [Fortnightly]