Northern Telecom Ltd chief Edmund Fitzgerald was in Paris this week waving the flag for his company’s plans to make France its main European base for its telecommunications business – and the plans sound uncomfortably reminiscent of those his predecessor Walter Light announced in October 1983 with respect to the UK. Northern Telecom was planning to invest some $12m consolidating its UK business at a vast new centre in Hemel Hempstead, and was talking of creating 500 new jobs by the end of 1984 – it had 330 here at that time – and looked for $Can500m of business in the UK by this year. It even reincorporated its UK operations as Northern Telecom Plc, and the clear hope was that substantial orders for DMS telephone exchanges would flow from British Telecom in recognition of its overt commitment to the UK. In the event, no orders were placed, the ambitious computer business also turned sour, and over the past six months, Northern Telecom has handed much of its UK operations over to STC Plc, embodying most of its continuing UK commitment in the long-term 24% stake it holds in STC. (It presently has some 27%, but has agreed to reduce it to 24%). The UK remains the wellspring of its European activities in public telecommunications equipment, in partnership with STC, but on the private communications side, the European white hope is now France, where the company may invest up to $52m in manufacturing and research facilities over the next three years, and has taken on board French partners in a new joint venture company to manage its European business telecommunications interests. The new Northern Telecom Meridian SA is capitalised at $35m and is 55% owned by Northern, 35% by the CGIP SA industrial holding company, and 10% by the Groupe Worms SA bank. The PABX manufacturing plant is to be in Verdun and the research and development unit will be at Marne La Valle, in the Paris suburbs.
