San Leandro, California-based ECI Environmental Inc’s ECI France SA unit has firmed up its agreement with IBM France SA (CI No 2,386) to take over part of IBM’s plant in Montpellier – but to win the agreement, IBM has had to agree to fund a minimum of about $3.2m in the form of worker training subsidies and low-interest loans. IBM will sell to ECI a 37,000 square foot factory building in Montpellier for about $900,000 on a purchase mortgage. As well as the Handtop pen-based personal computer, ECI will make at least 6,000 Super VGA monitors a month for Korea Data Systems Ltd, for distribution in the European Union. ECI will take on at least 150 new employees at the factory.
