Investors Looking At Micro Enhancement Group Acquires Options To Buy 49 Percent Of Company’s Stock

An investment group has acquired options to purchase 49 percent of Micro Enhancement International Inc.’s stock. The unidentified investment group is embarking on a due diligence investigation to determine if it will exercise the options.

“They are interested in acquiring the stock because they believe strongly in what the company is doing,” Tim Staples, Micro Enhancement’s chief executive officer, said Friday. “They are an investment company as opposed to an operating company, and we understand it is their desire to leave our management group in place.”

Micro Enhancement was founded in 1984 by Larry Day, the company’s president and board chairman. The company has grown from a start-up operation to about $4 million in sales last year, and 75 employees.

The publicly held company specializes in store and corporate automation and technology services for the food and drug industry. It has more than 6,500 installations worldwide.

The option agreement, which terminates June 9, grants the holder the right to exercise the option on 3,244,085 shares of stock at a price of $1.125 per share.

The agreement also provides that if the option is exercised, the investment group will offer all remaining shareholders the opportunity to sell their shares at not less than $1.125 so long as the group can acquire at least 51 percent of the stock.

One of Micro Enhancement’s principal products is its Share Builder micro marketing system.

A company news release describes Share Builders as a cardbased database marketing service that allows retailers and manufacturers to track customer purchase information and for utilizing that information “to build greater store and brand loyalty.”

Micro Enhancement products automate a broad range of store and corporate applications, the release says, from database marketing to consolidated product movement.