BarcoView Strengthens Position in France
BARCO Acquires TEXEN, a 100 % Subsidiary of THALES (Formerly Thomson-CSF)
KORTRIJK, 20 December, 2000 - BarcoView announces the acquisition of Texen, a subsidiary of Thales. Through the acquisition of the majority of the shares and the operational management of Texen, BarcoView will become a 100% owner after a period of 2 years. The acquisition of Texen will boost the opportunities for further development of the Toulouse-based company, and strengthen the position of BarcoView in the European market. The present acquisition is fully in line with the current evolutions in the market, indicating a move towards specialized product and subsystem builders, also active in local integration.
BarcoView intends to turn Texen into its worldwide competence center for consoles and associated software, rugged workstations and PC's, by combining marketing, development and service activities for these product lines. All activities of BarcoView in France will be based in Toulouse. Through BarcoView's worldwide commercial network, Texen's technology will also have much better access to markets outside France.
Up to now, Texen was a fully-owned subsidiary of Thales. It employs 140 people, and is situated in Toulouse, France. The expected turnover of Texen is estimated at 28 million euro in 2000. As a supplier of subsystems, its main activities are focused on rugged information systems for the defense market and high-resolution graphics controllers for the air traffic control industry. An important part of Texen's turnover is generated by service activities.
BarcoView is part of BARCO, which has been quoted on the Brussels stock exchange, (Brussels/Euronext) since 1986. BARCO is part of the BEL 20 index, Next 150 and several other indexes like the DJ STOXX 600 index and the FTSE EuroMid Index. In 1999 BarcoView realized 14 % of the total sales of BARCO.
About BarcoView:
BarcoView with operation facilities in Kortrijk (Belgium), Toulouse (France), Atlanta, Georgia and Portland, Oregon (USA) designs and manufactures high-resolution display systems, displays, graphics controllers and display subsystems for highly demanding niche markets such as C4I, avionics, vessel and air traffic control, vehicle electronics, and medical imaging applications.
Alongside Barco Projection Systems and BarcoVision, BarcoView is one of the three strategic activities of the BARCO Group, which are all active in Image Processing. Barco Projection is in various markets of large screen visualization, whereas BarcoVision develops systems for visual inspection and quality control. In 2000, the entire BARCO group delivered a turnover of euro 751 million. BARCO has a network of subsidiaries, distributors and agents in 97 countries throughout the world. BARCO has been quoted on the Brussels Stock Exchange since 1986, and is now quoted on Brussels/Euronext. BARCO is a BEL 20 and a Next 150 company and is member of the Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes.
For more information, please contact
Inge
Govaerts
Public Relations Manager
Barco Security & Monitoring
Telephone
+32 56 36 8052
inge.govaerts@barco.com
