By the end of the decade, the company had more than 50 subsidiaries in France, and had taken the lead of that market's technology consulting sector. The company was helped by the long-lasting recession affecting France and much of Europe at the beginning of the decade, as companies began outsourcing parts of their research and development operations. Altran was also expanding by acquisition, buying up a number of similar consultancies in France, such as the 1992 acquisition of GERPI, based in Rennes. By the end of that year, Altran's revenues had reached 76.5 million euros. With the elimination of border controls within the European Community in 1992, the company's clients began operations in other European countries. At first Altran turned to foreign partnerships in order to accommodate its clients. Yet this approach quickly proved unsatisfactory, and Altran put into place an aggressive acquisition plan in order to establish its own foreign operations. Altran targeted the Benelux countries, the first to lower their trade barriers, acquiring a Belgian company in 1992. By the end of the decade, the firm's network in these countries' markets was composed of 12 companies and 1,000 consultants. When an acquisition took place, Altran kept on existing management and in general the acquired firms retained their names. The acquisition policy was based on paying an initial fee for an acquisition, then on subsequent annual payments based on the acquired unit's performance. In 1992, Altran created Altran Conseil to work in the automobile equipment, nuclear and consumer electronic industries. Altran's Spanish operations began with the acquisition in 1993 of SDB España, a leading telecommunications consultant in that country, and later grew into a group of nine companies with more than 2,000 consultants. Spain remained one of the company's top three markets into the new century, with a total of six companies operating under Altran, including new acquisitions Norma, STE, Inser, and Strategy Consultors. By 1995, Altran's sales had topped 155 million euros, and its total number of employees had grown to nearly 2,400 (mostly engineers). The company recognized that the majority of engineers lacked a background in management, thus a training program called IMA (Institut pour le management Altran) was launched capable of training 200 candidates per year. In 1995 the company invested in the United Kingdom and acquired High Integrity Systems, a consulting firm focused on assisting companies that were transitioning into new-generation computer and network systems,