Compagnie des Machines Bull SA’s managing director, Bernard Pache, said in a committee meeting between labour and management last week that without doubt he would have to cut employee levels further. According to Les Echos, union officials said that Pache would give no indication of the size or timing of staff losses. Management indicated, however, that manufacturing sites in France, heavily pruned in previous restructuring, will be spared. Indeed the plant at Angers is expected to recover notably in the coming year, when it begins to manufacture GCOS 8 mainframe systems currently manufactured in the US. Such news indicates Bull’s persisting difficulties. In the first half, the group registered an operating loss of $158.7m and a net loss of $312m, on revenues down 9.6% at $2,600m. The newspaper Liberation believes that Bull’s operating loss for the full year could hit $185m, with net losses exceeding $370m. Bull management refused to comment. Bull has confirmed its intention to re-group several development teams within Bull Systems Products, which are working on common programmes but in different establishments. It also intends to close its Ave site for general cost-cutting reasons as well as Gambetta in Paris’s 20th arrondissement. This would enable us to save over $15m and would add to the decision to transfer group headquarters to Bull’s tower at La Defense, generating supplementary savings of $7.5m a year.
