General Motors Corp’s GM Hughes Electronics Corp doesn’t seem to be able to make up its mind about the simulation business: last year it sold its Hughes Rediffusion Simulation Ltd to Thomson-CSF SA (CI No 2,306): now it is buying the CAE-Link Corp business of CAE Inc of Toronto for $155m. CAE will take a one-time charge of about $21.5m on the sale but is keeping some product lines of the old Singer Co business, including the shipboard machinery control business, hydrocarbon process control modelling, biomedical and entertainment simulation systems. It will also retain US non-capital losses for tax purposes of about $160m. The business, which offers simulation and training devices to US defence agencies from its base in Binghamton, New York, has 3,100 employees and in fiscal 1994 had sales of about $340m. CAE wants the cash from Hughes to cut its debt to near zero.
