CTX on verge of shutting up shop in France

Monitor company CTX is in the throes of closing down its European operation. The manufacturer said its French office was being "reorganised", but could not deny that it may need to close. Dave Stevenson, general manager at CTX Europe, told The Register: "Nothing has been finalised yet. Senior management in the UK and France are discussing the matter." "The French operation is currently reorganising, but the closure is not an impossibility," he admitted. The company has a UK office in Watford with around 40 staff. It is deciding whether to centralise business or stick with its branch offices in Europe. Regarding the Watford operation, Stevenson said: "It should be very safe, I should imagine. We are a very successful company in the UK." He added that the company had been forced to centralise its notebook operation in Holland after problems in this area. CTX is part of Taiwanese manufacturer Chuntex Electronics. Chuntex sold around two million monitors last year, below the expected 2.5 million. It made a pre-tax loss of NTD3.3 billion, down on the previous year's pre-tax profit of NTD551 million. 1998 sales rose to NTD16.7 billion, against NTD12 billion the year before. The company blamed the loss mainly on a notebook inventory backlog. ®