Exhausted by the trauma of winning, fulfilling, and then abrubtly losing its monster OEM disk drive contract with IBM, Computer Memories Inc, of Chatsworth, California has decided to shake the dust of the computer industry from its feet, and hitch its wagon to the Hollywood sign. It has about $29.4m cash and no current products, and it has decided to invest the cash in British film actor David Hemmings’s Helmdale Film Corp. It has signed a letter of intent to acquire substantially all the assets of Helmdale for new Computer Memories shares representing 80% of the enlarged equity, and change its name to Helmdale. Intel’s 1.73m shares in Computer Memories, 15.6% of the total, will be bought back by the company for $2.75 apiece, giving the chipmaker $4.8m cash – effectively its share of Computer Memories’ cashpile. Formed in London in 1967 and now based in Los Angeles, Helmdale is a leading independent movie producer and financier, and now has a US theatrical distribution arm and home video, cable and television interests. It currently produces between six to 10 movies a year, and has a library of approximately 100 titles.
