LONDON (04/12/2000) - In anticipation of its flotation later in the year, ICL Ltd., the wholly owned subsidiary and British information technology unit of Fujitsu Ltd., is spinning off some of its divisions, the company announced today.
Specifically, ICL plans to list its IT training company, KnowledgePool Ltd. on the London Stock Exchange and Nasdaq and ICL Data Oy, ICL's Finnish operation, on the Helsinki Stock Exchange, the company said in a statement.
Last November, ICL announced it was spending 100 million pounds (US$159 million) to refashion itself into an e-business services company.
Some time after KnowledgePool's planned third-quarter spin off, Fujitsu will sell off a minority stake in ICL, but the company did not say exactly when this will happen.
ICL has also launched what it calls an incubation unit to explore future Internet investment opportunities, the company said. Furthermore, the company will train 3,000 of its employees per year to handle its e-business services, ICL said.
As part of the restructuring plan, ICL will close its trade distribution business which was part of its Multivendor Computing division, ICL said. Also, ICL has signed an agreement to sell its European spares logistics business 3i PLC. ICL did not disclose the financial details of the sale or when the sale was expected to be finalized though it did say the division employs approximately 230 people in the U.K. and an additional 70 people in the rest of Europe.
ICL also announced today that it had won a contract with the Northern Ireland Court Service, worth 27 million pounds, to put the Court Service online by September of this year, ICL said in a separate statement.
Additionally, ICL has signed new contracts with SAP AG in the U.K., Affinity Internet Holdings PLC and the Ministry of Sound Ltd., the online start-up venture by the long-running London nightclub, the company said.
Last month, ICL sold 16.8 percent of ICL Data for 141 million pounds to a consortium of investors lead by the Swedish investment bank, Enskilda Securities AB as part of its plan to turn ICL's operations in Sweden, Norway and Denmark into one pan-Nordic e-business services company, ICL said.
ICL, based in London, can be reached at +44-208-788-7272, or at http://www.icl.com. Fujitsu can be reached at +81-44-754-3283, or at http://www.fujitsu.co.jp/.