An exuberant Comparex Informationssysteme GmbH, full of its triumph at landing the European end of National Advanced Systems – unless anything goes awry in the final negotiations – came out with its 1988 figures at the Hanover Fair yesterday, reporting net profit up 15% at the equivalent of $26.4m on turnover that rose 30.2% to […]
An exuberant Comparex Informationssysteme GmbH, full of its triumph at landing the European end of National Advanced Systems – unless anything goes awry in the final negotiations – came out with its 1988 figures at the Hanover Fair yesterday, reporting net profit up 15% at the equivalent of $26.4m on turnover that rose 30.2% to $582m. The Mannheimer certainly needs National Advanced to give its business a better balance across Europe because the home West German market accounted for 47.5% of sales, with the rest of Europe making up only another 35%, and the balance from sales to affiliates. Chairman Rolf Brillinger confirmed that the company is deep in negotiations with Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA about Olivetti Computer Systems SpA, the company set up by Olivetti in 1978 to market Hitachi machines across Europe. Performance was so weak in most of Europe that the company withdrew to its home base, but still does significant IBM-compatible mainframe business in Italy. The talks are about Olivetti merging Olivetti Computer with Comparex in return for a shareholding in the company. Herr Brillinger looks for definitive agreement on the acquisition of National Advanced Systems by Hitachi Ltd and Electronic Data Systems by the end of the month, with completion of the subsequent sale of the European business to Comparex, in return for some cash and a Hitachi shareholding in Comparex, by mid-year. The message that Comparex wanted everyone to take home was forget where the products come from – we’re a truly European company, backing it up with the unveiling of a tape mounting robotic system that is made in Germany.
