What of ICL? Since its acquisition in September 1984, ICL has been the profits cow within STC but the computer business is notoriously cyclical, and even without any particular problems, ICL is about due for a downturn, and there is a fear that this will start to become evident when STC reports its 1987 figures: the most obvious feature of ICL within STC is that it simply doesn’t fit, and that since the coup that ousted Sir Kenneth Corfield, STC has done precisely nothing to make it fit, in particular selling off its own relevant businesses rather than integrate them with ICL to add value to the acquisition: the determination to run ICL in splendid isolation from the rest of STC is as loud a signal as a company can give that ICL is not seen as having a long-term future within STC, and given the regularly leaked promises to ICL top managers that at some stage they will be permitted to attempt a management buyout of the business, this seems the not unlikely eventual outcome.
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