In a bid to improve on the negligible sales achieved so far in France, Whitechapel Workstations has commissioned Thomson-CSF to manufacture the MG-1 workstations for the French market. The agreement is for an initial two years and Thomson is expected to make about 250 systems, worth UKP2.5m, in the first year and Whitechapel looks for 5% share of the French workstation market. Thomson will make the machines in Laval, west France, and recent Whitechapel distributor Multistation SA of Paris, will handle the marketing (CI No 579). Manufacturing for all other European countries will continue from its UK base in London E and has no plans for similar arrangements or more distributors. Whitechapel also has an injection of capital from Benevent Management of Brussels and Guinness Mahon’s Venture Founders in return for a 20% equity stake each. Each is putting up UKP275,000 now and another UKP275,000 is promised for later. Part of the cash will be used for new product development.
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