Mountain View, California-based Ask Computer Systems Inc, or the Ask Companies, as it likes to be called these days, says it has paid off, ahead of schedule, the borrowings it incurred in 1990 to acquire Ingres Corp, and has completed negotiations affecting its Mountain View and Alameda, California sites. It has signed a 15-year lease with South Bay Construction and Development Co, in joint venture with Copley Real Estate Partners, for a building at the corner in Santa Clara, which will become the corporate headquarters and those of the Ask Computer Systems manufacturing software arm, and expects to occupy the 200,000 square foot building before the end of the year. It has also expanded its leases in its Marina Village development in Alameda, where Ingres is located. The new 12 year six month agreements significantly reduce the rent on the three buildings Ingres currently occupies. Ingres’s headquarters building will be renovated and two additional buildings, totalling 85,000 square feet, will be built, on which Ingres has first refusal. On the treasury side, Ask says strong cash flow has enabled it to repay early the secured bank loan it took out to fund its share of the Ingres acquisition, and its banks granted a new unsecured $50m three-year revolving line of credit.
