Things do not look good for Norsk Data A/S, which has turned in losses the equivalent of $39m for the six months to June 30 on sales down 22% at $143m. The Oslo, Norway-based company has cut another 500 jobs – 100 more than expected, bringing down staff levels to 2,300 – half those of three years ago. The Oslo headquarters have been sold as one of the measures to release capital – $25m in the short-term, and Norsk is now renting the building from its leaseholder. Troublemaking publishing and printing system unit Comtec, has now been sold to QED Technology Ltd, part of the Maxwell Communications group; the financial details of the transaction are to finalised next month. Comtec has caused Norsk a lot of grief, this half contributing $9m losses. In Germany, Norsk Data GmbH has added losses of $10m, and the group restructuring programme has cost another $10m. As a result of the restructure this half, fixed costs have been reduced by $48m. Bearing up under the circumstances, group executive vice president Tor Alfheim asked the rhetorical Is this the end for Norsk Data?. Yes was his reply, for those who remember us as a minicomputer company. Norsk has thrown out its once hierarchical structure and considers itself more of a holding company with only around 15 central staff. It operates three autonomous divisions, excepting the UK and German operations. NordPartner is the software and services company, which is expected to be the source of the greatest future growth; ServiceTeam, the maintenance arm which is moving swiftly into facilities management – a blooming business sector with all those companies cutting back on inhouse maintenance operations in the recession; and DataShop, the distribution operation, which now includes Apple and IBM products among its seven proprietary hardware environments, in addition to other open systems. Norsk Data is positively crying out for partners in all three of these divisions, needing to share development costs, and to gain new geographical locations and new customer bases. ND ServiceTeam is growing to become a demonstration of how this strategy could save the company’s neck. By partnering up with Thomson-CSF’s maintenance arm, Thomainfor (CI No 1,649), Norsk Data, in the UK at any rate, has come on in leaps and bounds UK managing director Richard Ferre says Norsk Data UK Ltd, based in Newbury, Berkshire, is now profitable, turning over for the first time UKP1m in a week last week – usually its more like UKP500,000. Ferre says the UK division is even feeding portions of its cash reserves back to its ailing parent. Norsk Data UK laid of 70 employees in January, but has brought staff levels back up to 310 with the acquisition of Norman Magnetics Ltd, and the Thomainfor alliance. The UK operation reckons its future is very much in services, but also in optical disks – it is in negotiation with a couple of companies in this arena, with a view to their acquisition.
