Despite the political context, business continues for the Ministry of the Economy. Bercy announced, Thursday June 27, that it had signed with Nokia a promise to purchase 80% of the capital of Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN), the equipment manufacturer’s subsidiary for the production and installation of submarine telecommunications cables. Finnish.
Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers The weariness of Nokia France employees while waiting for the sixth departure plan in eight years
Add to your selections
The operation values the company at around 350 million euros, including debt. Once this has been removed, the State Participation Agency (APE), which is leading the transaction, will pay around 100 million euros to buy this block. The sale should be definitively signed at the end of the year. Nokia will retain the remaining 20% of the capital, but the State has options to ultimately purchase this residual share.
The Finnish group, which inherited ASN in 2015 at the time of the acquisition of Alcatel-Lucent, began thinking about the future of this company within its scope around two years ago. “The potential buyers did not completely suit us, which is why we decided to make this acquisition directly”explains Bercy, convinced of the strategic nature of this company: 99% of global Internet traffic passes through submarine cables and, with its maritime facade, France is a nerve center of the network.
Turnover has doubled in five years
Furthermore, the sabotage, in September 2022, of the Nord Stream gas pipeline, in the Baltic Sea, showed the potential vulnerability of underwater infrastructure. However, in addition to its cable production plant in Calais (Pas-de-Calais), the largest in Europe, ASN has a fleet of seven vessels, including two specially intended for repair or maintenance operations. .
ASN, which Nokia had already tried to sell at the end of 2018, has benefited in recent years from an explosion in its market driven by digital giants, such as Google and Facebook, which have become the largest installers of submarine cables in the world. .
Its turnover has doubled in five years, reaching 1.12 billion euros in 2023, and the cable manufacturer has invested more than 100 million euros in 2021 and 2022 to increase the production and storage capacities of its Calais plant, where it directly employs just over 600 people and around 400 subcontractors. ASN, which also has a plant in Greenwich, near London, to manufacture amplifiers, shares the market with the American SubCom and the Japanese NEC.
“No subject on staffing”
You have 29.17% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
