A restructuring deal, agreed by creditors should see Tandon Technologies’ parent company TSL Holdings Inc emerge from Chapter 11 by early next year (CI No 2,145). The move is being made from an investment group including chairman Jugi Tandon and headed by Chuck Peddle, now Tandon’s chief executive. New machines for the company are being manufactured by Siemens AG. Peddle’s own company THStyme Ltd has effectly merged with the remnants of the personal computer manufacturer. Tandon is also betting much of its future on new semiconductor technology being developed by THStyme. On the organisational front THStyme (UK) Ltd has changed its name to Tandon Technologies (UK) Ltd and a similar re-badging has taken place in Germany and France, where the THStyme operations take over from the bankrupt Tandon operations. The existing Swiss and Spanish operations stay where they are. The new Tandon will be a wholly European operation with only the TSL holding company board based in the US. The company is loath to give details of the amount invested in the restructuring, or who the new investers are, other than Peddle, but Peter Hunter, general manager of the UK operation says that the restructuring has reached the rubber stamp stage, and is just waiting on US court approval. David Deane, the new vice-president of Europe says that the original plan was to get TSL out of Chapter 11 by year end, and this may still be possible. The management team relies heavily on the original people who built Tandon’s European, but responding to the the changing market, the new version is being built as a skinny distribution operation: the UK arm employs 36 people and will stay small where a few years ago Tandon UK had 150 people and 80 company cars says Hunter. A new range of Siemens-built personal computers, including a hefty Pentium tower are being introduced to get the company on the road, but its long-term plan is to build modular personal computers. Early next year a third generation Data Pac removable hard disk subsystem will be launched – smaller, faster and with greater capacity than the current 100Mb to 400Mb offering says the company. The new mystery semiconductor will be used to design an MS-DOS and Unix-running machine that dispenses entirely with the current personal computer architecture. What ever it is, Deane says that it is currently moving to first silicon and should be ready for manufacture in nine months’ time.
