CORE DUMP

CrownX, the Canadian insurance and health care concern, has revived its bid to gain control of Fundamental Brokers Inc., the British and Commonwealth unit. Under the proposal now on the table CrownX would acquire 51% of Fundamental; the other 49% of the brokerage would be offered to FBI's management. The deal values FBI at approximately $150 million. A partial management buyout is considered a pratical necessity for the sale or merger of FBI, whose main assets consist of brokerage talent. Sources say CrownX' offer for FBI will be announced within the next few weeks.

Clarification: Ian Hobson, information systems manager of Hambrecht & Quist, says the firm's selection of a Macintosh-based trading system was based solely on functionality. Contrary to the opinion expressed by the June 20, 1988 TST, the decision had nothing to do with Apple Computer Inc.'s ties to the firm or its executives, Hobson says. He notes that H&Q has an investment banking relationship with Apollo Computer Inc., which has an OEM agreement with Programit, a digital trading systems supplier. Programmit was one of several companies that responded to H&Q's RFP for 20 to 40 trader workstations and 100 broker workstations.

Bankers Trust Co. is negotiating with ADS Associates Inc. to obtain marketing rights to ADS's Global Trader Workstation system, says Barry Bolger, ADS vice president.

Global Trader is a fixed-income trading and portfolio management system that runs on an IBM PC. It is available on either a stand- alone basis or as part of a local area network.

The system brings together real-time market data, real-time and historical decision-support analysis and real-time position information.

Based in Calabasas, Calif., ADS also offers Resource, PC-based software for treasury department functions. ADS has agreements with a dozen financial institutions allowing them to market Resource to their customers.

Any agreement between ADS and Bankers Trust would not be exclusive, says Bolger, because ADS wants to license as many copies of Global Trader as possible. Dataline, Canada's number two quote vendor, holds marketing rights for Global Trader in Canada and the U.K.

NMW Computers, the British service bureau, has built an automated securities trading system for Barclays de Zoete Wedd, a marketmaker on the International (London) Stock Exchange. Known as Trade, the system is scheduled to begin operating this month. Trade allows BZW to automatically fill orders entered by brokers. After the transaction is executed, details are transmitted to the back-office systems of BZW and the broker on the other side of the trade.

Contel Financial Systems says it recently eliminated 25 staff and administrative positions or about 2.5% of its workforce. Contel says it took the action "to adapt to the reduced level of activity in the world's financial markets since the stock market crash."

Based in Greenwich, Conn., Contel Financial Systems is the parent company of Contel IPC, which manufactures telephone turrets, and Contel MDS, which provides market data and decision support systems. Two of the 25 eliminated positions were in Greenwich and the remainder were in New York City.

Ira O. Feinberg has joined Bankers Trust Co. as senior vice president of technology. Feinberg was previously president of Marigold Information Technology Inc., a financial technology consulting firm in Greenwich, Conn.

CCF Inc. has licensed the government securities and off-balance sheet instrument modules of its CMark trading system to National Australia Bank's New York office.

Mark T. Smith has been named securities industry director at Stratus Computer Inc., where he will direct the company's efforts to market Stratus OLTP systems to stock exchanges and their members. Before joining Stratus, Smith was vice president of technology for the American Stock Exchange. While he was at the Amex, Smith supervised the development of a Stratus-based system for distributing market data and processing trades.