Bull takes tighter control of its Spanish operations; CP8 card venture After two years of being overshadowed by the progress of other multinationals in Spain, Bull Espana SA has reported turnover up 22%. Now that Bull SA has full control of Bull HN, it wants to support its multi-national European major accounts more efficiently so as to provide a better service at less cost to its local subsidiaries. In Spain, Bull has already teamed up with Amper SA via its subsidiary Bull CP8 for the joint manufacture of Smart Cards for payphones (CI No 1,105). This project was initiated by Telefonica which picked the French company because of Smart Card penetration in the French market, and then paid $21.3m for a 10% share in Bull CP8 so that it could have a say in its management and marketing. The resulting factory will assemble chips in the cards and hopes to produce 750,000 cards a year, increasing this to 10,000,000 by 1992. In addition, Bull has increased its investment in Spain with the acquisition of most of Telesincro SA and the two companies are at present working on technology required by the Banca Catalana for a new electronic payment service using Smart Cards capable of storing large amounts of data. Total investment for this project should be about $20m and Telesincro will manufacture the card readers. If this system, new on the Spanish market, is as successful as Bull hopes in Catalonia, it will be extended across the country. Bull has also been retained by Basque electrotechnical group Fagor SA to implement a major automation system costing a total $21m over the next five years. Bull will supply computer equipment and technical assistance and train staff. The other main Bull markets in Spain are government, finance and industry.
