Everything about Alstom totally explained
Alstom (formerly
GEC-Alsthom) is a large
French multinational conglomerate whose businesses are
power generation,
railway signalling and manufacturing
trains (for example the
TGV,
Eurostar,
Adelante as well as
Citadis trams). According to the company website, in the years 2006/07 Alstom had annual sales of over €14 billion, and employed more than 69,000 people in over 70 countries. Its headquarters are located in
Levallois-Perret, near
Paris.
Some of the world's largest
ships (for example
Normandie and the
Queen Mary 2) were also conceived by Alstom, activity that was sold in 2006.
The current
CEO is
Patrick Kron, who succeeded
Pierre Bilger.
Financial information
Alstom has been listed on the Paris Stock Exchange since
June 22 1998. The Group has been listed on the London Stock Exchange since
November 17 2003, and on the New York Stock Exchange since August 2004. When the markets closed on
December 31 2005, its
market capitalization was € 6.7 billion. Market capitalization as of
March 9 2007 was € 13.6 billion.
History
The name of the company derives from the region of
Alsace and the surname of the engineer
Elihu Thomson. The
th sound in the is therefore hard, as it would be in French anyway.
Alsthom
It was formed in 1928 from three companies: Société Alsacienne de Construction Mécanique,
Compagnie Générale d'Electricité (CGE) and
Thomson Houston.
GEC Alsthom
It was formed in 1988 from the heavy engineering interests of Britain's
GEC and Compagnie Générale d'Electricité's Alsthom division as
GEC Alsthom. In 1991 GEC adopted the name
Alcatel Alsthom and in 1998 this became simply
Alcatel. In 1989 the company acquired the railway interests of
Metro Cammell, and maintained train production at its Birmingham plant until 2005. Today Alstom's heavy rail interests in the UK are limited to various maintenance facilities up and down the railway network.
Alstom
In December 1997, GEC Alsthom had its initial public offering as
Alstom. GEC and Alcatel maintained 24% shares in the new company. Shares were initially at a price roughly equivalent to €32.
In 1998, Alstom acquired railway signaling companies in Italy (
Sasib Railways) and the United States (
General Railway Signal) from their Italian parent company
Sasib.
Between January and February 2001
Marconi plc (the renamed GEC) sold 76.4% of its 24% share. The remaining 5.67% share was sold in June. In 2001, Alcatel also sold its 24% stake. The share price fell steeply following the
September 11, 2001 attacks when a number of cruise liner orders failed.
At the same time, a number of problems became apparent in the new generation of gas turbines, GT24 and GT26, Alstom installed around the turn of the century. The financial liability for repairing these problems pushed Alstom into a financial crisis. On
March 12 2003, shares dipped 50 per cent in one day, and finished at €1.36. At this point it was announced that the most profitable division of the company would be sold off: its
power transmission interests. In January 2004 these were transferred to
Areva. Only through a much needed financial infusion from the French government was Alstom rescued from going into bankruptcy. The 21% of the stake the French government took as the result of rescue was later sold to the French company Bouygues, one of the world's largest construction companies.
In 2003, Alstom purchased
Telecite, a passenger information company in
Montreal, Quebec in Canada.
In January 2006, the sale of Alstom shipyards to Aker Yards ASA (a part of the Norwegian
Aker group) was announced. The transaction was completed on
May 5 2006. A new company consisting of Alstom's shipyards in Saint-Nazaire and Lorient was established under the name of Aker Yards SA. Aker Yards owns 75% of Aker Yards SA, and ALSTOM the remaining 25% until 2010.
In March 2006, the Power Conversion Business, formerly Alstom Power Conversion (APC), was bought by
Barclays Private Equity France (BPEF). The Power Conversion Business, which deals in projects and hardware to convert electrical power to mechanical movement, now trades as
Converteam.
The
U.S. headquarters for Alstom Power is located on Day Hill Road in
Windsor, Connecticut at the former location of
Combustion Engineering. The Country President is John Crean.
Products
Alstom's products include:
Passenger rail vehicles
Railway signalling equipment
Control Centers
Interlocking Equipment
Signals
Switch/Point Machines
Track Circuits
The Queen Mary 2
Power business
Boiler and Boiler Retrofits
Environmental Control Systems (Air pollution control systems, filters etc) for the power industry and various other industries
Gas turbines
Generators
Steam turbines
Steam turbine retrofits
Turnkey power plants
Wind Energy
Power conversion business
Variable-speed drives
Programmable logic controllers
Rail clients
Angel Trains
Amtrak
Amtrak California
České dráhy
China Ministry of Railways
Connex Melbourne
CP
CPTM
E.On
FGC
HSBC Rail
Indian Railways
KCRC
London Underground
Luas
Metro de Barcelona
Metrovías S.A.
Metro Warszawskie (Warsaw)
MARTA
MTA New York
MTR
New Jersey Transit
NS
Porterbrook
RATP
SBS Transit
Sao Paulo Metro
SEPTA
SNCB/NMBS
SNCF
SMRT Corporation
Sri Lanka Government Railway
SJ
Storstockholms Lokaltrafik
Swift Rail Ltd
STM
Taipei Metro
Vattenfall
VIA Rail
WMATA
Santo Domingo Metro
Power clients
Various electric suppliers, transmission and distribution companies around the worldFurther Information
Get more info on 'Alstom'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://alstom.totallyexplained.com">Alstom Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
