Having suspended operations at the St Paul, Minnesota firm and written it down to zero in its books, Control Data Corp has now thought better of its decision simply to abandon the supercomputer business, and on Wednesday, president Larry Perlman told the annual meeting that the company is in very preliminary discussion with several parties to attempt to sell the assets and the technologies of its ETA Systems Corp, but didn’t elaborate. It also said it was cautiously optimistic that it will be able to secure an adequate refinancing package in the near term. The company has a good cash balance today and positive cash flow from its ongoing businesses, chairman Robert Price told the CDC shareholders – but the incremental cash requirements for the restructuring will be somewhat over $100m and to offset this, CDC is in the process of selling assets or businesses that would bring in close to that amount – no doubt including Systime Ltd over here, although nothing specific was identified at the meet.
