Rather than be picked off one by one by the foreign competition, three of the largest computer services companies in the Netherlands are to combine to create an organisation that covers the gamut of services and has combined annual turnover approaching $1,500m. Taking an unusual approach, Getronics NV and Dutch state-owned but soon-to-be-privatised Roccade Informatica Groep NV each plan to take a 50% stake in privately-held Raet NV. No financial details on the potential deal were disclosed. Getronics had turnover equivalent to $843m last year. Raet had 1994 turnover of $296m and operating profit of $13.3m, and it employs 1,600 staff. Roccade employs 2,500 staff, and annual sales are running at around $327m. Raet, big in pay-roll services and packaged software, needed a rich partner to become a broadly-based firm able to face up to increasing global competition. Getronics and Roccade, which will use their cash reserves – Getronics has $180m reserves – along with bank loans to finance the acquisition, say Raet makes a perfect fit. Getronics said it had teamed up with Roccade to buy a stake in Raet because it did not to specialise in fields outside its current competence. We musn’t become too diversified. In our company we don’t have personnel systems (pay-roll administration) or application packages expertise, which is available at Roccade, the company said. Getronics would use the advantages sprouting from the alliance to expand its base outside Holland, primarily in countries where it already has offices.
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