California retailer Gateway Computer Centers will announce its emergence from Chapter XI bankruptcy protection at two news conferences to be held tomorrow at either end of the state. Founded in 1979 as a single facility micro retailer, Gateway changed direction three years later and started marketing large computer systems to Fortune 1000 clients. By 1984, it had established corporate headquarters in Huntington Beach and looked to expand its operations to 15 locations – but by mid-1985, profits vanished due in part to management difficulties, market changes, bad debt and ill-planned growth, so that between July 1985 and July 1986, losses exceeded $6m. On July 28 last year it filed a Chapter XI bankruptcy petition. A new man-agement team moved in in March, and on April 30, it filed a plan of reorganisation, and by June, Gateway had turned a profit. It now operates nine business centres in addition to its corporate headquarters and some 180 employees. It looks for to-tal sales this year to come out at more than $70m.
