A group of Belgian investors is to buy the country’s only surviving computer manufacturing plant from Unisys Corp for just three Belgian francs – that’s three cents, 1.7p. The group, led by industrialist Leon-Francois Deferm, has formed a new company, Trident Technologies International SA, with the aim of building an independent Belgian computer business. The former Burroughs plant, at Herstal, near Liege, is to be used for printed circuit board manufacture, hightech assembly, and as a base for European wide engineering and maintenance. As part of the agreement, Trident is taking over over the Unisys international repair centre at the plant in return for a guaranteed level of work from Unisys. Unisys announced back in September (CI No 779) that manufacturing at the plant would cease from November 30 with the loss of 400 out of the 500 jobs. The intervention of Trident has reduced the expected job losses to 80. The deal is scheduled to be completed in February. Unisys, meanwhile, is to start Spanish manufacture of B25, the box it builds under licence from Convergent Inc, at the Madrid, Spain facility that includes the firm’s European artificial intelligence base.
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