Phoenix Group Sells 80% of Foreign Marketing Arm

Phoenix Group International Inc. said Thursday that it has sold an 80% interest in its foreign marketing arm and certain future foreign commercial rights to a British company in an all-stock transaction.

The buyer, Albany Management Group Ltd. of Guernsey, paid for the transaction with 1.6 million shares of Phoenix Group stock that it owned. Phoenix Group said it will retire those shares, reducing its shares outstanding by 12%.

Albany’s new unit, Phoenix World Trade Ltd., will establish foreign trade and counter-trade representation for various subsidiaries of the Phoenix Group, particularly in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, said Phoenix Group spokesman Jack Spencer.

The deal excludes the recently announced joint venture between American PC--a Phoenix subsidiary--and the Soviet Union in which American PC is to supply up to 6 million personal computers to Soviet schools and other organizations.

Spencer said that Phoenix World Trade will work predominantly to broker “counter-trade” items that Phoenix units receive for their goods.

Counter-trade is the practice of paying for purchases with commodities rather than currency. An Eastern European government, for example, might pay for computers from a Phoenix subsidiary with several thousand tons of coal or steel, which Phoenix World Trade would then sell to generate currency.

Spencer said Phoenix Group officials have received “a large number” of inquiries from potential customers in the Soviet Union since the announcement of the computer deal in September and currently is negotiating several other transactions that Phoenix World Trade would handle.

Charles Missler, Phoenix Group chairman, and Alan J. Mattal, chairman and chief executive of Netcom Research Inc., a Phoenix Group subsidiary, will serve on the board of directors of Phoenix World Trade.