Olivetti SpA has made its largest acquisition since the 1986 purchase of Triumph-Adler, buying 51% of the Norwegian Scanvest Ring A/S group as part of the Italian’s strategy to transform itself from a manufacturing and box-shifting company to a full service systems company. Quoted in Oslo and Paris – and capitalised at $125m, Scanvest-Ring is a holding company for a string of firms ranging from systems houses to communications equipment manufacturers, and notched up 1987 profits of about $12.7m on revenues of $138m. The 1,000-employee group includes Scanvest-Ring Telecommunications, a PABX supplier that sells in both the US and Scandinavia and like Olivetti has connections with Northern Telecom; Scanvest-Ring Data, a Norwegian systems integrator; Swedish Carl Lamm System, a Unix systems house that resells Pyramid Technology minis; Scanvest Management Systeme, a Danish systems integrator, and Kitron of Norway, which makes components and communications equipment. Scanvest-Ring also has 36% of Norsk Computer Industri A/S, the maker of 68020-based Unix machines that recently clinched a deal to supply Datapoint Corp with systems worth some $30m at end-user prices. The deal is subject to approval by Scandinavian government authorities and will approximately double Olivetti’s Scandinavian revenues. Olivetti said it had confidence in Scanvest-Ring’s present management and marketing strategy, suggesting no drastic changes to Scanvest firms in the near future.