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Gold/Mining/Energy : CGI Group (GIB.A) - -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: BM who wrote (134)	12/12/1997 1:02:00 PM
From: BM	Respond to of 1673

Another partnership - Desjardins THE CGI GROUP AND THE MOUVEMENT DESJARDINS LAUNCH $150 MILLION ALLIANCE IN PAY SERVICES SECTOR MONTREAL, Dec. 12 /CNW/ - The CGI Group Inc. and the Mouvement Desjardins today announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding for the launch of a business alliance. According to the agreement, CGI will establish a pay services centre and take responsibility for the management and processing of pay services for Services de paie Desjardins clients, representing some 7,000 Quebec-based companies. Services de paie Desjardins will remain responsible for marketing and business development. CGI will ensure the technological evolution of applications, provide customer and information processing services and develop a new business solution meeting the needs of this service. The initial agreement covers a ten-year period and will generate total revenues of approximately $150 million. As part of the alliance, CGI and the Mouvement Desjardins will cooperate in order to maintain their leadership position in the pay and administrative services market serving Quebec and Canadian-based companies. Over the long term, both partners intend to strengthen their business ties by developing additional markets in this area of activity. ''In order to face our growing competition and to ensure the growth and development of our Services de paie Desjardins company, we chose to establish a partnership with CGI, a leader in Quebec's information technology industry,'' said Claude B‚land, President of the Mouvement des caisses Desjardins. ''The joining together of our respective expertise will enable us to create a major company in the pay services sector,'' he added. Serge Godin, CGI's Chairman and CEO, added: ''CGI is pleased to establish this alliance with a company that has such a presence in the financial services industry. CGI will provide, the Mouvement Desjardins with its state-of-the-art expertise and global business solutions in systems integration consulting services.'' Based on the memorandum of understanding, CGI will have responsibility for all of the new pay services centre's operations. The Services de paie Desjardins' 200 employees, 60% of whom work part-time, will join the CGI team. CGI will invest some $10 million over two years to optimize the centre's technology and operational efficiency and to develop new solutions to support its activities. This will allow the centre to extend its range of services in order to meet the needs of larger clients. CGI will also ensure that peripheral systems supporting the pay services centre's activities are Year-2000 compliant. With total assets of $70 billion and some 45,000 employees, the Mouvement des caisses Desjardins is Quebec's largest financial institution and private employer. It is the only institution to offer, through approximately 1,300 caisses across Quebec, a complete range of financial products and services. The Mouvement Desjardins' mission is to contribute to the economic and social well-being of people and communities. Internet address: www.desjardins.com. CGI is the largest Canadian-owned independent information technology consulting firm with 4,000 professionals and a revenue run-rate of $500 million. The company's backlog is currently valued at $1.3 billion. It provides end-to-end IT services and business solutions to some 2,000 clients throughout Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere around the world. CGI's shares are listed on the Toronto and Montreal stock exchanges under the GIB.A symbol. Website address: www.cgi.ca.