NCR Is 3rd Big Firm to Leave S. Africa in ’89
Business systems giant NCR Corp. Tuesday became the third major U.S. company this year to make arrangements to pull out of South Africa.
NCR, a maker of computers and business systems based in Dayton, Ohio, will sell its majority shareholding in NCR Corp. of South Africa Ltd. to Allied Electronics Corp., a local manufacturer and distributor of electronics products, Allied said Tuesday.
Bill Venter, Allied executive chairman, said NCR would sell 50.1% of the shares in its South African unit to Fintech Ltd., an Allied subsidiary, with the balance of stock going to European investors. The European parties were not identified.
Financial details of the arrangement with Allied Electronics were not disclosed, but the deal would be effective retroactively from Dec. 1, 1988.
“NCR holds a major share in markets in South Africa and most of the country’s banking and large retail organizations are part of NCR’s blue-chip customer range,” Venter said in a statement.
500 Employees
NCR is the third big U.S. corporation to pull out of South Africa this year, according the U.S. Investor Responsibility Research Center.
Last month Hewlett-Packard Co. sold out, citing frustration at the slow pace of change in apartheid race laws. Insurance company St. Paul Cos. disinvested earlier in the year.
NCR’s South African subsidiary employs about 500 people. Sales and profit figures were not disclosed.
More than half the 300 U.S. companies operating in South Africa in 1984 have since pulled out amid intense anti-apartheid pressures and concern about the country’s economic future.
Of the 135 U.S. corporations that remain, oil company Mobil Corp. is the largest with 2,793 employees, according to the Washington-based investor group. Other major companies still in South Africa include Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. and RJR Nabisco Inc.
Allied Electronics group has acquired a number of former subsidiaries after disinvestment by their U.S. parent companies, including the South African units of Xerox Corp. and Telerate Inc.
