The French group Normerel has been undergoing some upheaval over the past year with its management staging a leveraged buyout from its majority shareholder the Tareine holding company. At present the management’s holding company, Norca, holds 70% of the group’s parent company Normerel Electronique SA, with the remaining 30% of the shares being traded over the counter in Paris. This change of ownership has so far had its most dramatic impact on the subsidiary Normerel Systemes which was set up by Normerel and Rank Xerox in 1985 to market the fruits of Normerel’s research and development operations. For the group has now purchased the 35% of the subsidiary that Rank Xerox owned and in future the division will represent the group commercially building up its distribution outlets. Within France, contracts have recently been signed with distributors such as Sagem SA, OTP, Decision Data Computer, Sepia Informatique, Cominor, Omnilogic, Clef International, and ICT/RE21. Meanwhile the group’s US subsidiary Normerel USA will shift its focus from the distribution of the company’s branded product range to the development of OEM contracts. Within Europe, distribution deals have been struck with Rank Xerox in Spain, Portugal and Norway, Ibimaint in Italy, MDS in West Germany and Panatronic in Switzerland. Normerel has also begun sales to Eastern Europe with 250 machines delivered each month to the USSR via Rank Xerox’s East Bloc trading unit. The group manufactures an AT range and the NS line which is PS/2 compatible. The products are manufactured by Normerel at Granville in Normandy from the board level up and use the company’s own patented BIOS. Despite setting up a subsidiary in the UK last April the group has continued to have a low profile in Britain. In a bid to correct this Memorex Telex has been given the exclusive distribution rights for the NS 65 until August. Presumably this is the product to look out for in the UK where it will largely be sold OEM. It is priced at UKP3,530, uses the Intel 16MHz 80386SX chip with 16-bit bus, and has 1Mb of memory expandable to 4Mb. A 20MHz model, the NS 70 will be available from March at UKP3,630. Within the UK the company is still looking for some small value added resellers and expects to announce several large OEM contracts in the next few weeks. As for the future, the group intends to increase its capital in late 1989 or early 1990 through a employee share ownership plan, when it will also begin trading on the Paris Bourse Second Market. – Katy Ring