The 19% French stake in Fortune Systems Corp, originally acquired back in 1981 by Thomson SA when Fortune was a start-up, which has since passed from hand to hand in various reorganisations of the French computer industry, is now to be sold by the current owner, Compagnie Generale d’Electricite’s Alcatel USA Corp. A group led by CitiCorp Capital Investors Ltd has paid $100,000 for an option on the 3.947m shares, which was bought on April 24 and expires on May 26. The group says it acquired the option for investment purposes, and may decide to exercise it collectively or individually. If the former, they may seek to influence the management and future policies of the Belmont, California company, which is in process of selling its core Unix systems manufacturing business to SCI Systems Corp, Huntsville, Alabama, and will be left as a cash- and tax-loss-rich shell with a tiny software company, Tigera, as its only operating unit.
