Commissie start diepte-onderzoek naar Franse staatssteun voor computerfabrikant Bull (en)

The European Commission today opened an in-depth investigation into aid notified by the French Government in support of the restructuring plan for Bull. France undertakes not to pay this latest restructuring aid before 31 December 2004. The aid will be disbursed only after the rescue aid granted in 2001 and 2002 has been repaid.

The aid notified by France in February 2004 will total €517 million. In exchange, the French Government is imposing a "better fortunes" clause in the form of payment to the State by Bull of 23.5% of its annual consolidated result before tax for a period of eight years starting from 2005. According to the French authorities, the clause represents a present value of between €50 million and €60 million.

The French authorities intend to pay the new aid on 31 December 2004 at the earliest. The rescue aid granted in 2001 and 2002 will first be reimbursed. It had been approved on 13 November 2002 on condition that the company repay it by 17 June 2003 (see IP/02/1666). However, this deadline was not met.

On 26 November 2003 the Commission brought an action before the Court of Justice against France for failure to recover the rescue aid by the agreed date (17 June 2003).

The aid notified by France in February 2004 is part of the financial restructuring of Bull based on a new restructuring plan drawn up in 2002. The plan involves a large reduction in overheads, a cut in staff numbers to 7 800 by the end of 2003 and a refocusing on the company's strengths, namely GCOS proprietary servers, IT services linked to Bull products and the development of a new range of open servers. Apart from the aid, the two main strands of the financial component of the plan are:

• a 90% reduction in the €204 million debt owed to convertible bond holders, combined with an offer to convert their securities into equity or into equity coupled with stock options;

• a capital increase to be launched on the market and guaranteed to the tune of €33 million by a group of investors.

The Commission has carried out a preliminary assessment of the aid in the light of the Community guidelines on state aid for rescuing and restructuring firms in difficulty.⁽¹⁾ It will have to look in more detail into the case in order to ascertain whether:

• the plan guarantees a return to viability, in the light of a financial situation for the cpmpany which appears to have been improving for some time;

• undue distortions of competition are avoided;

• the aid is limited to the minimum needed and does not provide the company with surplus cash.

Background

Bull is an international group which operates mainly in the areas of up-market professional servers and specialised computer engineering services. Its turnover in 2003 was €1 265 million. In 1999 it was forced to sell assets. Since 2001 its position has deteriorated owing to the stockmarket crisis affecting technology stocks, the crisis in the Internet sector and the collapse of telecommunications markets.

Bull designs and supplies a range of large professional servers based on the proprietary operating system GCOS. It also sells servers using IBM and NEC technology. In addition, it provides its customers with maintenance services directly linked to the servers.

^{(1)JO C 288, 9.10.1999, p. 2.}