One of the UK’s newest systems integration companies, Experian, a subsidiary of Great Universal Stores (GES), has offered approximately $116m (FF 700m) for SG2, the information systems division of French bank Societe Generale, said a report Tuesday in Les Echos. The bank, which must still get approval of its unions for the sale, had made no secret of its desire to sell SG2, but most rumors had identified German systems house Debis as the likely candidate. SG2, which reported revenues of approximately $183m (FF 1.1bn) in 1996, was formed by the 1972 spin-off of the bank’s I.T. activities. The company sold its systems engineering group to French systems house Sopra in 1996 and began looking for a new shareholder early last year. According to French I.T. publication O1 Informatique, SG2 was the country’s sixth-largest systems house in 1996. Experian was already present in France with its purchase of CCN Coref, but SG2 gives it a much stronger foothold in finance and facilities management and payroll. We are also very interested by SG2’s presence in areas other than finance, with clients such as France Telecom, Total and Procter and Gamble, the paper quotes an Experian spokesman. Les Echos says Experian is committed to providing a constant volume of work for Societe Generale for the next five years. Furthermore, it reports that SG2’s president Georges Grima and managing director Thierry Demier will remain in charge of the company, which will change its name to Experian in the coming weeks. In the meantime, SG2 introduced Networked Systems Management Center, its remote systems and distributed applications management offer. The product can be installed either at the client site or administered from SG2’s network center, the company said. NSMCenter, an ensemble of tools, provides three levels of functionality: real-time supervision and visualization of network traffic volume and applications; secure, remote operation and administration of all information system components, including midrange systems, routers and PCs and applications and databases; dynamic inventory and configuration of installed equipment and software licenses and remote downloading of software. With the launch of the offer, SG2 created a dedicated, 24-hour, 7-day-a-week help center in the Paris area that regroups technicians with a variety of system skills, including Oracle, Sybase, Unix servers, NT and AS400.
