Motorola, NEC to Buy Pieces of French Computer Maker

Motorola Inc. and NEC Corp. of Japan are both set to take a 17% stake in the money-losing French computer maker Cie des Machines Bull, sources close to the talks said Tuesday.

IPC of Singapore will take a stake smaller than 10% later in the year while International Business Machines Corp. is prepared to raise its stake in Bull to 5% from 1.8%, they added.

Agreements with the main partners will be signed within three weeks, they said.

This means the French state has nearly reached its goal of reducing its stake to below 50% before the end of 1995. This goal was a condition set by the European Commission in October for approving a $2.22-billion state capital injection.

There had been heightened worries about whether the sale, one of the most difficult of the Conservative government’s privatization program, would succeed, since American telecommunications giant AT&T; last month dropped a 40% bid it had made in conjunction with French group Quadral.

The government’s deadline on tender offers for stakes in Bull was March 15.

Both Motorola and NEC, which already holds a 3.7% stake, would get a stake similar to that of state telecommunications operator France Telecom.

Since Bull’s last capital increase in December, France Telecom has a direct 14% stake with options that would bring it back at 17%.

The Economy and Industry Ministries said in a joint statement on Friday that they have received several offers for stakes in Bull, which is valued at about $1.4 billion, from “various industrial groups of the first order.”