A £28 million share sale by Serge Crasnianski, chief executive, in that month did not go unnoticed by investors. Especially as a string of profit warnings followed, driving the shares as low as 75p during the year.

In August, Ernst & Young, the group’s auditor, forced it to issue a warning after it questioned the way the company had treated the sale of equipment to pay for a minority stake in its Japanese business. In June of that year, it emerged that some of Photo-Me’s operations had been sold to a company owned by two of Photo-Me’s directors at the time.

Vernon Sankey, the former chief executive of Reckitt & Colman, was brought in as deputy chairman in October, helping to see off a shareholder revolt. He succeeded Dan David as chairman in February this year.

The company spent three years in the red, before recovering in 2004 to a £15 million profit. In 2002 it was forced to scrap its dividend and it saw its shares sink to 14½p.

In the year to April 2005 profits rose to £22 million as the group’s focus on exploiting the take-up of digital cameras combined with cost savings in its manufacturing business to drive growth.

Mr Crasnianski, a trained nuclear physicist, joined the company in 1994 with its acquisition of KIS, his Grenoble-based photo technology company. He holds 19 per cent of Photo-Me and has more than 100 patents to his name.

He started KIS in 1963, straight from college, and later held a seat on the Photo-Me board before the takeover.

Photo-Me traces its creation back to 1958, 12 years after the first photo booth was developed. In 1962 it floated on the stock market as Photo-Me International. After its acquisition of KIS, the group went on to buy, in 1998, its rivals Prontophot and Photomaton.

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