Alstom - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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, G24 and G26, 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 euros. 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.
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, G24 and G26, 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 euros. 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.
Reads like a textbook model for Colman's postulate - except that it wasn't nationalised, just got a governmental cash injection and the game continued.
Is this also the company responsible for rolling out the new railway signaling system that has been a pain in the everywhere, resulting in (further) delays for the Dutch high speed train connection?
But it would never have been needed if Alstom had not been stripped out before. All the big engineering companies need to have large cash reserves to cover unexpected technical problems (especially teething problems on new technology), and Alstom's was taken out by Alcatel and Marconi.
Now you can argue that:
The competence stayed (even though most of the jobs were of course cut) and today the industry has grown into a high tech knowledge-intensive extremely specialised business, supplying lots of highpaying high value-added jobs, and huge export revenue.
The Swedish state did this by itself (IIRC) but other times it has been helped out by the local patriotic capitalist dynasty, the Wallenberg family, who are about as far as you can come from "faceless fund capitalism". Peak oil is not an energy crisis. It is a liquid fuel crisis.
