Flotation fever seizes Norwich

THE STOCK market is bracing itself for an invasion from East Anglia.

This week the pathfinder prospectus is being published for the flotation of Norcor short for Norwich Corrugated one of Britain's biggest makers of corrugated board.

And before too long into the next football season begins is very old Norwich City Football Club is set to dribble its way to the stock market. It will be the fourth third club to be have its shares quoted, after Tottenham Hotspur and Millwall. and Scotland's Hibernian. The latter has since gone private again, after its parent folded.

Norwich is one of the most successful clubs outside the big cities. But it has had to pay its way by finding promising players and selling them. In 1992 Robert Fleck went to this month's FA cup finalists, Chelsea, for pounds 2m.

Norcor, which is expected to be priced at pounds 40m, was a pounds 36m management buyout in 1989 from Ruberoid, then a subsidiary of Tarmac, the housebuilding and Channel Tunnel contractor.

To beef up the management team, Norcor has recruited as chairman David Snedden, former chief executive of Trinity Holdings, the Liverpool Daily Post's parent company, as chairman. and a past chairman of the Press Association.

Norcor has fought to weather the recession, holding profits at around pounds 3.8m since 1990 while sales have risen from pounds 33m to pounds 39m.