The agreement being thrashed out under which Siemens AG will take Rolm Corp off IBM’s hands is clearly very different from the one that was announced in the preliminary agreement at the end of last year, and Siemens now says that the cash portion of the price will be clearly below one billion marks – that means it will be not more than about $500m – but the price will now be adjusted retroactively, however, according to the performance of the IBM-Siemens joint venture to be set up to sell and service private telephone exchanges in the US; Siemens says that turning the loss-making Rolm business around is going to need a long consolidation.
