As part of an effort to concentrate its business on facilities management, the EDS France subsidiary of Electronic Data Systems Corp is expected to announce sale of its technical support business, say sources close to the company. While no details were officially available, a report in Les Echos said the group would go to a consortium comprising Alain Mallart, president and chief executive of Novalliance SA, and Jacques Tordjman, former president and chief executive of GFI SA. The technical support business comprises principally GFI, the French company and one-time subsidiary of SD-Scicon that became the core of the Dallas firm’s activity in France in 1991 when EDS bought SD-Scicon. The group, which employs about 900 people, had turnover last year of some $80m. If the sale indeed involves Tordjman, it would mark a return of the company’s former president to the helm. Les Echos said the consortium intended to reactivate the GFI brand name (which the General Motors Corp unit dropped after Tordjman’s departure), because it still has a good image among the clientele.
