German post-production house Das Werk has added to its international network by acquiring a 15% stake in French digital post and effects house Mikros Images, with plans to extend this to a majority interest in future.

The two companies are founding members of the Max European Post-Production Alliance, along with Belgium's Ace, Spain's En Efecto and Italy's Blue Gold.

Das Werk acquired En Efecto earlier this year, and has announced plans to secure a majority stake in UK post-production facility Glassworks by January 2001.

In addition, Das Werk is in talks to buy into an as-yet-unnamed Los Angeles-based post-production house which would give the German company a foothold in the US market in addition to its presence in Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Canada and Korea.

The deal with Mikros involved a capital increase of $6.79m (FF50m) to which Das Werk contributed $2.72m (FF20m).

Mikros Image, which is majority-owned by MTC Holding, recently merged with digital editing facility Monteurs' Studio, with which it had previously created a film post-production "one-stop-shop", Cinem@.

The company, which has just wrapped work on Alain Corneau's $16.3m (FFr120m) Le Prince Du Pacifique and Jean-Jacques Beineix's Mortal Transfert, is expected to register some $20.4m (FFr150m) in sales in 2000.

Francoise Meaux Saint Marc IN PARIS contributed to this report