Thales Group

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Thales Group

Type	Public Euronext: HO
Founded	6 December 2000
Headquarters	Neuilly-sur-Seine, France
Key people	Denis Ranque (Chairman & CEO) Alex Dorrian Executive vice-president
Industry	Aerospace, Defence and IT
Revenue	€10,275.9 million (Y/E 2004)
Operating income	€590.2 million
Net income	€354.2 million
Employees	55,476 (2004)
Website	www.thalesgroup.com

The Thales Group (Euronext: HO) is a global electronics company delivering mission-critical information systems and services for the Aerospace, Defence, and Security markets.

The company changed its name to Thales from Thomson-CSF in December 2000 shortly after the £1.3bn acquisition of Racal Electronics plc, a UK defence electronics group. It is now partially state-owned, and has operations in more than 50 countries and 70,000 employees, and generated over 13 billion euros in revenues in 2006¹.

Thales Group is ranked as the 485th largest company by Fortune 500 Global and is the 9th largest defense contractor in the world.^[1]. 63% of its' total sales are military sales.

1 History
- 1.1 Alcatel deal
2 Areas of business
3 Bribery
4 Major shareholders
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] History

For a full history prior to 2000 see the main article: Thomson-CSF

Thales' predecessor, Thomson-CSF, evolved from Compagnie Francaise Thomson-Houston (CFTH), which was established in 1893. However Thomson-CSF itself was established in 1968 when Thomson-Brandt (the renamed CFTH) merged its electronics arm with that of Compagnie Générale de Télégraphie Sans Fil (CSF).

Thales formed a joint venture with Raytheon in June, 2001 to combine their radar and communications systems divisions. Named ThalesRaytheonSystems, the firm is 50% owned by both parent companies.

In 2002 Thales set up the joint venture company Armaris with the French shipbuilder DCN to offer a total "bottom up" shipbuilding capability.

In 2003 Thales UK's design won the competition for the Royal Navy Future Carrier (CVF) and the company now participates in an alliance company with BAE Systems and the UK Ministry of Defence. This Thales design may form the basis of the Future French aircraft carrier which the company has agreed to build with DCN.

In 2004 Thales provided China with radio jamming technology and technical support. Although the contract was not specifically for the purpose of jamming foreign radio stations broadcasting to China, it now appears that this is what the ALLISS antennas are being used for. [1]

In 2006 Thales were given the green light to buy out Australian Defence Industries a major manufacturer of such military equipment as smokeless gunpowder and the Bushmaster Armored Personel Carrier. As of September 06, all ADI branding has been replaced with Thales, and the website templates have been changed.

[edit] Alcatel deal

In April, 2006, Thales announced it would be acquiring Alcatel's space business (67% of Alcatel Alenia Space and 33% of Telespazio) in a deal which also raised Alcatel's ownership of Thales to 21.66 percent. The French government would also decrease its ownership in Thales to 27.1 percent from 31.3 percent as part of the acquisition. According to an Alcatel Press Room Web page of April 5, 2006, the deal would also include the Transport Automation Solutions (TAS) activities, Alcatel's business division for signalling solutions for rail transport and urban metros as well as Alcatel's Systems Integration activities (those not dedicated to telecoms operators, and covering mainly the transport and energy sectors).

[edit] Areas of business

Thales presence in the UK (largely as a result of the Racal acquisition) has resulted in several high profile contracts. The company is part of the Airtanker consortium, the winning bid for the RAF's Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft. Thales UK won the contract for the British Army UAV programme, Watchkeeper.

Thales is named after the Greek astronomer (“Θαλῆς”), and as such is correctly pronounced [ˈθeɪliːz] ([ˈθalɛːz] in ancient Greek). However, the French owners tend to prefer their pronunciation of [talɛs] or sometimes [ˈtɑlɛs].

Note: This page or section contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for a pronunciation key.

[edit] Bribery

In 2005 Schabir Shaikh, a South African businessman and associate of Defence Minister Jacob Zuma, was convicted of soliciting a bribe agreement between Thales (then called Thomson-CSF) and Zuma in 2000 connected to a $5bn arms deal.