Wang/Groupe Bull Agreement Finalized

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Executives at Wang Laboratories Inc. and French company Groupe Bull have signed definitive purchase and sale agreements under which Wang will acquire many of Groupe Bull's assets.

Those assets include the purchase of Bull's worldwide work flow and imaging business, its U.S. government systems business, its U.S. customer service business and its sales and service subsidiaries in Canada, Mexico, Australia and New Zealand. The agreement, announced in September and signed last week, also includes several reciprocal, worldwide distribution and licensing agreements.

xecutives at Wang Laboratories Inc. and French company Groupe Bull have signed definitive purchase and sale agreements under which Wang will acquire many of Groupe Bull's assets.

Among other benefits, Wang's purchase of many of Groupe Bull's U.S. government systems businesses will establish Wang as one of the top 10 information technology integrators in the federal government market, said Jim Hogan, president of Wang's federal systems division.

The division, known as HFSI, is a leading federal systems integrator based in McLean, Va. Hogan said Wang's federal headquarters, currently in Bethesda, Md., probably will move to McLean and merge with HFSI.

Under the agreement, Wang, headquartered in Lowell, Mass., will deliver at closing $110 million in cash, $27.2 million in short-term notes and 1,650,000 shares of Wang common stock. The transaction is expected later this month and is subject to French government approval and to financing acceptable to Wang, said Wang spokesman Frank Ryan.

Wang also disclosed that it has been offered and is considering a bank commitment for the cash portion of the transaction.


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