Mergers and acquisitions: GDF-SUEZ

Résumé du document

The expression 'mergers and acquisitions' (abbreviated M&A) refers to the aspect of corporate strategy, corporate finance and management dealing with the buying, selling and combining of different companies that can aid, finance, or help a growing company in a given industry grow rapidly without having to create another business entity. A merger is a combination of two companies into one larger company. Such actions are commonly voluntary and involve stock swap. Stock swap is often used as it allows the shareholders of the two companies to share the risk involved in the deal. A merger can resemble a takeover but result in a new company name (often combining the names of the original companies) and in new branding; in some cases, terming the combination a 'merger' rather than an acquisition is done purely for political or marketing reasons. More than 2 years after its announcement, the merger of Gaz de France and Suez is finally official, July 22 th 2008 is indeed the birth and the listing of GDF Suez.

Extraits

[...] Key figure Customers: 13.9 million in Europe Staff: 50,244 employees, including 32% outside France 2. Company of Suez History Suez group, French industrial and services group, for energy and the environment. Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez was formed in 1858 at the initiative of Ferdinand de Lesseps during the digging of the Suez Canal which later opened in 1869.The group was receiving prosperous transit fees paid by users of the canal where traffic was increasing. The year 1956 marks however a stop to this expansion: the new Egyptian president, Gamal Abdel Nasser, proceeded with the nationalization of the canal and in fact the company was deprived of objects and to redeploy its activities to other business, the Compagnie Universelle du Canal Maritime de Suez became the Compagnie Financière de Suez in 1958. [...]

[...] For the analysts, the new group GDF-Suez offers an interesting action. GDF-Suez indeed combines a two digit growth of the results, the multiple subordinates to those of the sector, a weak rate of debts, and Ebitda which leans about a third on regulated activities and thus only a little is at risk. The perspective that rates regulated by some gas might become lower than market prices concerns the investors regularly. The valuable increases of the gas rates, decided by the State, thus are to be watched. [...]

[...] Moreover, they insisted on the fact that GDF-Suez would not be able to assume its function of public services. (This is currently wrong . ) And always, from a point of view of privatization, people are afraid by a trial of OPA on GDF-Suez. These actions took some time, but they've finally understood that : - Alone, the GDF Company belonged at 80% to the government and then couldn't be an OPA target. - Alone, Suez company had a very fragmented capital which was under high risk of OPA. [...]

[...] The State possesses of the capital of Gas of France, that is 789,065,335 actions. It represents of the capital of the new group, the figure often quoted by the media. But the French State also holds, via the CDC (deposit and consignment office) from Suez, that is 69,908,275 actions. With this participation, the State holds of the new group, without counting the actions of Suez detainees by the insurance company CNP (controlled by the State) and the other companies under public control. [...]

[...] III- After the merger We talk now about facts and figures posted on July 22nd 2008. The merger realized, we are going to speak about the made work and coming work after this union. But let's start with a short presentation about a new company: 1. Welcome to the GDF-Suez world GDF Suez was born from the fusion realized on July 22nd after two and a half years of long waiting between Gas of France and Suez. The group, chaired by Gérard Mestrallet, assisted by Jean-François Cirelli, is established as the European leader in the sector of electricity and gas in terms of turnover of 74.3 billion euros in 2007, against 69 billion for E.ON and 60 billion for EDF. [...]