Athesa, the facilities management venture between Compagnie des Machines Bull SA and CISI SA, should be officially inaugurated this week, even if the members of the company’s labour-management committee that were supposed to have approved it walked out on the meeting this week, says Thierry Breton, Bull’s newly appointed manager of strategic partnerships and business development. That the unions walked out on the extraordinary committee meeting does not mean that they are, in principle, opposed to the project, Breton said. Despite their walk-out, Bull and CISI intend to create Athesa France by merging Bull’s two data centres (SIG and Methodes et Informatiques) and CISI’s facilities management activity. The resulting company will have annual turnover equivalent to some $68m, and employ 600 people. The new company will be managed by Jacques Tordjman, former chief of EDS-GFI, Electronic Data Systems Corp’s French subsidiary, and Claude Moireau, formerly president of CISI Telematique. La Tribune-Defosses says the management team has already won its first contract, worth $3.5m or so, from the Central Building Fund for the Paris Region. The paper also quotes a source close to the new subsidiary saying Athesa France should be profitable this year, on a 15% to 20% increase in turnover; Athesa UK will be announced within days.
