With Der Spiegel claiming that losses at Nixdorf Computer AG for 1989 will be much worse than expected – the magazine suggests $600m against the $350m the company had been forecasting, rescue for the company is now pressing. Although Mannesmann AG is strongly thought to be in the driving seat, a new name has appeared in the Nixdorf acquisition saga, not long after the Paderborner’s Christmas announcement hinting at strategic partnerships encompassing the whole enterprise: according to Computerwoche’s Bavarian sources, principals of the Munich-based car manufacturer Bayerische MotorenWerke AG met with foundation board chairman Gerhard Schmidt, representing the majority of the Nixdorf voting shares, and ex-chairman of the management board Klaus Luft, with the intention of wrapping the deal up. The first consequence of this move is that BMW has reportedly already decided that it will spend its entire budget for distributed processing systems for 1990 with Nixdorf. By taking over the capital put up by the original foundation bodies – the Westfalen and Friedrich Graf Spree foundations hold more than 50% of the roughly $140m of total voting capital, with over 25% of the rest belonging directly to the Nixdorf family – BMW would already have the majority of voting shares and so gain control; further rumours have it that the Nixdorfs have already sold their share to BMW. At a meeting held shortly before Christmas, the new Nixdorf boss Horst Nasko said he would be revealing his plans for financial regeneration to the advisory board on January 22 – initially these plans were thought to involve simply strengthening the existing co-operative agreements with Nixdorf’s strategic partners. Nasko then admitted that Nixdorf had made the mistake of being too optimistic on market trends, and that as a result, further cost-cutting excercises would review the feasibility of Nixdorf’s presence outside West Germany.
