With industrial giants like Ford and Chrysler on the prowl for their own counterparts to General Motors Corp’s Electronic Data Systems, and IBM it-self playing up the systems integration business as a potential major moneyspinner for the 1990s, it is quite surprising that perhaps the most attractive large property in the business, Computer Sciences Corp, […]
With industrial giants like Ford and Chrysler on the prowl for their own counterparts to General Motors Corp’s Electronic Data Systems, and IBM it-self playing up the systems integration business as a potential major moneyspinner for the 1990s, it is quite surprising that perhaps the most attractive large property in the business, Computer Sciences Corp, has managed to retain its independence. The UKP275m-a-year El Segundo, California company would like to keep it that way, and is taking steps to bolster its business in the face of profit containment policies put in place by the US Federal Government. It has built up a war chest of $200m that is now available to spend on acquisitions in the commercial software and systems integration field. Talking to stock analysts in New York the other day, chairman and president William Hoover said that Computer Sciences was seeking to increase the proportion of commercial business in its turnover mix in order to improve profit margins. It currently does 67% of its business with the US Federal Government, but wants to get that down to 60% by fiscal 1991. By then, it wants to be getting 50% of its operating profit from non-Federal business – but ironically, while non-Federal business accounted for 33% of turnover in fiscal 1987, it made up only 28% of operating profits totalling $21.2m.
