ICL Plc is welcoming the New Year with a string of initiatives and disposals. It is putting its contract manufacturing operations into a separate subsidiary in a bid to increase the business it takes in from the likes of Sun Microsystems Inc, forming a new services subsidiary in France, and selling the rest of its stake in International Network Services Ltd to its partner. The new manufacturing and supply company is to be called Design to Distribution Ltd, and starts life with revenues from outside ICL of a reported $100m, which it aims to triple by 1996; total turnover at the unit is put at $400m. In France, the new ICL Services SA will take in ICL France’s maintenance, advisory, engineering and equipment supply services. It has also taken a 70% stake in Vendome Formation SA, which specialises in multimedia training and is planning to establish a facilities management unit in partnership with the parent’s CFM subsidiary. And the sale – to GE Information Services Ltd – of its 50% stake in International Network Services Ltd – a company it formed in 1987 to offer Electronic Data Interchange services before bringing the General Electric Co Inc subsidiary in as a partner, sees it exiting the EDI business, except as a user of the services; terms of the sale were not disclosed.
