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It may look like just another British business buying up companies in the U.S., but $315 million Danka Business Systems PLC, an office equipment distributor, has an advantage: It's run from the U.S. by an American. That president and CEO, Dan M. Doyle, has made 44 U.S. acquisitions in seven years, including two in May, and plans to extend Danka's reach beyond its current 134 outlets in 25 states.
In Danka's second-largest acquisition, it paid $7.2 million for the outstanding stock of Phoenix-based Uni-Copy Corp., a $27.5 million dealer of Canon and Sharp photocopiers. With locations in Phoenix, San Diego and Tucson, Uni-Copy gives Danka, already dominant in the Southeast and Midwest, access to West Coast markets. These are "lucrative, very key markets," says Judith G. Scott, a securities analyst at Robert W. Baird & Co. of Milwaukee. The same month, Danka also paid $414,000 to acquire Cumberland Business Systems, an $800,000 dealer of Canon and Konica copiers in Cookeville, Tenn. Then, in June, Mr. Doyle began a global expansion, buying a $22.5 million British office equipment company for about $750,000 in stock.
Much of Danka's history is linked to acquisitions. In 1977 Mr. Doyle, 52, cofounded Danka in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., with partner Frank McPeak. They built it to $30 million in sales and 21 outlets before Mr. McPeak opted out and Mr. Doyle decided he needed funds to fuel more growth. He sold Danka in 1386 to New Court Natural Resources PLC, a British investment shell including such heavyweights as Rothschilds Continuation Ltd. The British group, which had sustained heavy losses in U.S. oil drilling in the '80s and had $19.5 million in tax loss carry forwards, assumed Danka's name, and its stock has continued to trade under that new name on the London Stock Exchange. Since then, the British board members have acted as passive investors, allowing Mr. Doyle to manage the company from Florida.
Mr. Doyle has been far from passive. Fueled by the new owners'...