The French government is to pump another $1,250m into Compagnie des Machines Bull SA – if it can get the massive subvention past the European Commission in Brussels. Making the announcement and revealing that Bernard Pache is to be supplanted as chairman of the company, French Minister of Industry, Post and Telecommunications Gerard Longuet said the government is convinced that Bull can and must be turned around and repositioned to become, as quickly as possible, a profitable company that is the most efficient and responsive in serving its customers. Describing Bull as one of the most arduous cases I’ve had to deal with, Longuet said With, I hope, the approval of Brussels, the govvernment has decided, one last time, to contribute to a recapitalisation of Bull, making it possible to privatise the company. The state will trickle the $1,250m in new capital into Bull over the period from the end of this year to the end of 1994. Longuet said he has also asked Bull’s other shareholders, France Telecom (which has little alternative but to do what it is told by the government), IBM Corp and NEC Corp to contribute pro rata to their holdings; France Telecom has already agreed to put up $214m. A Bull spokesman said they were waiting to hear from IBM and NEC. The minister has also appointed Jean-Marie Descarpentries, who is currently chief of the transport group Mory SA, to replace Bernard Pache, who has been running Bull for the last 16 months. Longuet was said to have had major differences with Pache over what needed to be done with Bull, with Longuet insis ting the losses had to be brought under control and Pache resisting a dismantling of Bull. According to La Tribune-Defosses, Longuet had offered the post to other computer company chiefs in France, in cluding Hewlett-Packard Co chief Kleber Beauvillain, ahead of Descarpentries.
