One part of SMT-Goupil SA’s liquidation that survived the company’s banruptcy and liquidation is the OEM personal computer manufacturing end, Normerel SA. Ousted in March 1990 at the time of SMT-Goupil SA’s takeover of Normerel, Franois Martel, former Normerel president, who now manages IICC, part of the Segur SA group, has bid successfully to buy back his former company, following the liquidation of SMT-Goupil in July. For the equivalent of $163,500 in shares, and a further $572,400 over six months to cover inventories, IICC will buy back Normerel and Normerel Services, Lettre de l’Informatique reports. There were three other candidates in the bidding before the Court of Commerce in Creteil – Taiwanese company Sampo Inc, French company Somelec SA and a joint company headed by Francois Baeza, to whom SMT had entrusted the manufacture of its microcomputers. The battle was conducted on the basis of the location of staff Sampo faced the opposition of IICC, which wanted to keep manufacturing where it is, in Granville, at a site now largely deserted but still operational. Today, Normerel SA and its services company employ 85 people in all, of which 57 are at Granville, where Franois Martel maintains 47 jobs, down from 150 in 1990. The company is now effectively the only French micro maker apart from Groupe Bull SA. Back in the saddle at his old company, Francois Martel intends to integrate the micro manufacturer with his own company, IICC, but also with Convergence Micro SA and Segiciel SA, the other computer-related divisions within the Segur group.
