The biggest backer of Memec when it was founded in 1974 was Werner Stolz, inventor of the Stolz PROM programmer. He tells an interesting tale of how he got to be involved in the founding on Memec.
"I was representing Harris and Transitron in Switzerland. Harris was not very happy with sales in the UK and I was asked if I would handle the line in the UK. I thought of Dick who I had met a couple of times during sales meetings at Transitron and so I arranged to meet him at the Holiday Inn at Heathrow", remebers Stolz.
"here are three Holiday Inns at Heathrow", recalls Wtolz, "when I got there it was foggy and you couldn't see two metres in front of your nose. I checked into the Holiday Inn and then thought 'maybe I'm in the wrong hotel'.
"At that moment the alarm went off for a bomb scare-there were quite a lot of bomb alarms at at time (early 1970s IRA activities) and the hotel was evacuated. So I was standing outside the hotel in the fog with the luggage inside and no way off contacting Dick. So I went to off to find a telephone and eventually found Dick in another Holiday Inn", recounts Stolz.
"We agreed that we should set up a company to market the Harris line in England. I brought the Harris line to the deal and Dick brought the English marketing sales and experience. "
"I put-in most of the cash about £7,000 and Dick had the majority of the shares. I didn't have anything against that,@ says Stolz, "I was happy with it because I wanted the company to succeed. His risk was bigger than mine in giving up his job with GDS (Dick's employers)."
Stolz’s return when Memec IPO’d in 1981 was to see his £7000 investment transformed into shares worth £2 million.
Subscribe to this blog's feed