Mergers and acquisitions: examples of GDF/Suez, Air France/KLM y Thomson/Reuters

Résumé du document

?GDF/SUEZ' is the famous French energy provider group which specialized in the transportation and distribution of natural gas. Since the invention of the European energy market, GDF has diversified itself on the electricity market area by developing and creating offers to provide and supply natural gas and its subsequent product which is electricity. In February 2006, the two companies decided to merge in order to face the hostile take over bid which was launched by the Italian Enel on Suez. The merger has between the board of directors and the French government was followed by a lot of discussions between the two parties. The cause of this detailed discussion was the 80% ownership of the French state in the GDF portion. The discussions highlighted areas such as the protectionism of the French interests in the company. With regard to the French legal framework, the focus was on the main difficulty encountered by the two companies.

Extraits

[...] Suez is in charge of providing the energy and GDF is in charge of the network management. The companies have the same goal but different skills and fields to achieve it. The mission is to provide energy to million of users The drivers The vision is to become the world leader in natural liquid gas. This involves beginning with the domestic market and out coming to the worldwide presence. Thanks to the complementarities of their core business, they intend to reinforce their commercial offers in the following sectors; Gas and electricity, Innovative energetic services, Infrastructure, Nuclear, Sustainable sources of energy. [...]

[...] In addition, the value of the share price has more than doubled from 14 euros to 34 euros between 2003 and 2007. We note also an increase of the turnover from million of euros to in 2007 with a recruitment process from to employees. Air France KLM implements an efficient strategy which guarantees returns to the shareholders. This financial health lets expect a long term and sustainable growth. The complementarities are a source of cash flow to face against low cost competitors. [...]

[...] The group Air France KLM is the worldwide leader in terms of international traffic of passengers, the second group for the cargo activity and one of the first providers of maintenance services Presentation of the companies Air France is French company founded in 1933 and it was the national airline of France employing 71654 people worldwide. Its main platform is situated in the Roissy Charles de Gaulle airport. Before the merger, the Air France Company was owned at 53% by the State and faced a partial privatisation in 1999. Now it owns 81% on the new group and the state owns 18% after the public offer of exchange in 2007. KLM was the national airline of Netherlands and the oldest airline in the world operating under the same name. [...]

[...] It is an ambitious industrial strategy that is being implemented and it is indeed approved by both parts. The new group will prevent from any hostile acquisition as the one of the Italian Enel. The Suez Company was indeed a real opportunity to combine two forces and form a strong industrial and financial group and avoid future antitrust risks. These operational and financial objectives of the new group reflect a common ambitious industrial vision whose main goal is the wealth creation and based essentially on the human resources. [...]

[...] The main driver to synergies is the international presence of Reuters which is supposed to create partnerships and compete worldwide. The financial health of the group is visible thanks to the market capitalization and the increasing margin as well as free cash flow The current situation The cost of the transaction was about 18.15 billons of euros submitted to the approbation of the Competition's Regulators, as well as the one of the shareholders of Reuters. The holding family of Thomson which possesses 70% on the Canadian group will obtain 53% on the new entity, the other actual shareholders of Thomson 23% and those of Reuters 24%. [...]