Executives from TRT SA, the French telecommunications division of Philips Communication Systems, and Experdata SA, the French enterprise networking company, last week outlined the strategic reasons for TRT buying 75% of Experdata (CI No 2,058) – the deal was actually completed at the end of October. With its purchase, TRT says it reinforced its position in the French telecommunications market, particularly that of private premises equipment and public network access products. Jean de Panafieu, managing director of Experdata, said the company chose TRT over a purely financial investor, which might have ultimately sold off its interest, to have an industrial partner that would invest for the long term. Furthermore, executives said, the two companies’ technical strengths complement each other. TRT specialises in long-distance data networking, diverse transmission technologies – Pleiosochronous Digital Hierarchy, Synchronous Digital Hierarchy, and data communications – modems, multiplexers, X25, Frame Relay and multi-protocol. Experdata’s speciality lies in communications, intercommunications and administration of local area networks. Both companies also have complementary expertise in the emerging ATM Asynchronous Transfer Mode technology. TRT reported net profit in 1991 of $2.7m on $409m turnover, which represents a growth rate of 37% over the last two years. Experdata expects to report 1992 revenues of $18m with after-tax profit of $920,000. Experdata says its average annual growth rate over the last three years is 70%. It spends an average of 22% to 23% of its revenues on research and development. Before TRT’s action, the capital of Experdata was held by the company’s own directors, employees and other investors, including 12% held by France Telecom. Today, the remaining 25% after TRT’s holding is owned 10% by the company’s founders and 15% by institutional investors, within which France Telecom’s stake is down to 5%. De Panafieu said France Telecom had no other motivation for reducing its capital participation other than to enable TRT to take the majority. As an enterprise networking specialist, Experdata says it is number one in France based on the number of 10Base-T nodes it has installed. The company expects to deliver 30,000 nodes in the current half-year for a total installed base of approximately 90,000. Experdata says Internationa Data Corp forecasts a total French market for 10Base-T nodes in 1992 of some 120,000. Experdata executives and Robert Benattar, operations manager for SynOptics Communications France SA, said the arrangement with TRT will not change anything in either its distribution or its integrator agreements with Experdata. De Panafieu said the first evidence of the synergy between TRT and Experdata would be in commercial co-operation.
