Alstom

Alstom SA
FormerlyAlsthom, GEC Alsthom
Company typePublic
ISINFR0010220475 Edit this on Wikidata
IndustryRail transport
Founded1928; 96 years ago (1928)
HeadquartersSaint-Ouen-sur-Seine, France
Key people
Henri Poupart-Lafarge (Chairman and CEO)
ProductsRailway vehicles, service and systems, signalling, electric road systems
RevenueIncrease 17.62 billion (2023/2024)
−12,000,000 Euro (2023) Edit this on Wikidata
Decrease €-307 million (2023/2024)
Total assetsIncrease €33.25 billion (2023/2024)
Total equityDecrease €8.78 billion (2023/2024)
OwnerCDPQ (17.5%)
Number of employees
>80,000 (2024)
Websitealstom.com
Footnotes / references
Financial figures are for fiscal year ended 31 March 2022.
References:[1][2][3]

Alstom SA is a French multinational rolling stock manufacturer which operates worldwide in rail transport markets. It is active in the fields of passenger transportation, signaling, and locomotives, producing high-speed, suburban, regional and urban trains along with trams.

The company and its name (originally spelled Alsthom) was formed by a merger between the electric engineering division of Société Alsacienne de Constructions Mécaniques (Als) and Compagnie Française Thomson-Houston (thom) in 1928. Significant acquisitions later included the Constructions Électriques de France (1932), shipbuilder Chantiers de l'Atlantique (1976), and parts of ACEC (late-1980s).

A merger with parts of the British General Electric Company formed GEC Alsthom in 1989. Throughout the 1990s, the company expanded its holdings in the rail sector, acquiring German rolling stock manufacturer Linke-Hofmann-Busch and Italian rail signaling specialist Sasib Railways. In 1998, GEC Alsthom was listed on the Paris Stock Exchange and, later that year, it was rebranded Alstom. At the time, the company was manufacturing railway rolling stock, power generation equipment and ships.

In 2003, the company required a €3.2 billion bailout from the French government. As a result, Alstom was compelled to dispose of several of its divisions, including shipbuilding and electrical transmission to Areva,[4] in order to comply with European Union rules on state aid. In 2004, Alstom remained in financial difficulties, having incurred massive unexpected costs (€4 billion) arising from a design flaw inherited from the acquisition of ABB's turbine business, in addition to losses in other business sectors.

In 2014, General Electric (GE) announced that it reached a deal to purchase Alstom's power and grid divisions for US$17 billion (€12.4 billion). The deal came under heavy scrutiny from French regulators who saw the business as a strategically important domestic industry. To secure approval, GE agreed to form joint ventures with French companies in power generation and transmission, Alstom's heavy gas turbine business was sold to Ansaldo Energia, and GE agreed to sell Alstom's rail signalling business. The deal was finalised in November 2015; since then, Alstom has been operating solely in the rail sector.

In an attempt to grow its rail business, in late-2017, Alstom announced a proposed merger with Siemens Mobility. However, in February 2019, the European Commission prohibited the merger. Subsequently, in February 2020, the company signed a letter of agreement to purchase the transportation division of the financially struggling Bombardier Inc. The purchase was finalized in January 2021.

  1. ^ "Consolidated Financial Statements FY 2021/22" (PDF). Alstom. Retrieved 10 September 2022.
  2. ^ Alstom, Consolidated Financial Statements 1 April 2020 – 31 March 2021, retrieved 14 September 2021
  3. ^ "ALSTOM Shareholders". www.marketscreener.com. Retrieved 20 May 2021.
  4. ^ "ALSTOM sells its Transmission and Distribution activities to Areva for 950 million euros".