Thale’s economic and financial history:
In order to carry out an accurate and objective analysis of the price of Thales shares, it is essential to master the indicators of the technical analysis and to be able to interpret effectively the data of the fundamental analysis. To help you, lets immerse ourselves in the financial and economic history of this group in order to remember the events that have marked the evolution of this title in the stock market.
First of all, lets recall that in 1998, the French governments signed a cooperation agreement between the aerospace companies, Alcatel and Dassault, planning to give shares to Thomson-CSF and to consolidate the space activities of Alcatel, Aerospace and Thomson-CSF into one joint venture called Alcatel-Space in order to consolidate its competitiveness in the sector of defense and industrial electronics and its implementation in the European market. The companies Alcatel and Dassault Industries became then shareholders and the State only owns a minority share of 40%.
The expansion of Thales continued in the year 2000 with the takeover of the British company Racal Electronics, which boosted the sector of technology and information and mobile telecommunications. That same year, the company reorganized itself into three sectors: defense, aeronautics and information and service technologies, and Thomson-CSF officially became Thales’. In the process, the group announced its intention to create a joint venture with Raytheon named Thales Raytheon Systems which will put together the activities of military command and radar interfaces of both companies.
- In 2004, Thales planned an approach to the company EADS but at the end, this approach did not take place.
- In 2005, Thales finally moved closer to DCNS by acquiring 25% of its capital in order to make itself a place in the sector of European Naval military and to create the Airbus Naval.
- In 2006, Thales obtained the Australian government’s agreement to buy the company ADI (Australian Defense Industries) which specializes in the manufacture of military equipment such as smokeless power, all the products of the brand ADI were, that same year, replaced by products of the brand Thales, the website of the company was changed too.
- In 2007, Thales signed an agreement with the company Alcatel-Lucent to transfer its transport, security and space activities to Thales and then, a new agreement concerning this time the creation of a joint venture called “Thales Alenia Space”.
- In 2009, Dassault Aviation bought the shares of Alcatel-Lucents and acquired 25.90% of the shares of the group Thales. That same year, Thales also participated in the design of BoostAeroSpace.
- In 2011, Thales implemented the fusion of its subsidiaries Thales Communications and Thales security Solutions & services by creating a new entity named Thales communication & Security. In December of that same year, the group increased its stake of DCNS to 35% and planned to invest in the company Nexter. It then created a joint venture with the group Safran regarding the management of programs in the field of optronics following a negotiation of two years.
- In 2014, Thales took over the cybersecurity activities of Alcatel-Lucents.
- In 2015, Australia announced the acquisition of 1 100 light blinded cars of the brand Hawkei from Thales for 817 million euros. At the same time, Thales acquired Vormetric, an American company that specializes in the protection of corporate data for an amount of 400 million dollars.
- In 2017, Thales signed a 10 years contract of a billion euros with the French Ministry of Defense.
By matching these important dates with the historical stock market charts, you will be able to understand how Thales shares have responded to the different announcements and thus determine the way it will likely behave in the future with similar announcements.
Thales’ economic and strategic organization:
Since the beginning of the 21st century, the organization of Thales has been based on a matrix model with 6 global activities reunited into three sectors which are, aerospace with avionics and space, transports with land transport system, defense and security with secure information communication systems, land and air systems, defense mission systems, but also the company DCNS held by 35% by the group. Finally, an international organization divided on the major countries in which the group operates, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United States, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom as well as other European countries and emerging countries.
The 6 activities mentioned here replace the 6 divisions set up in 2004 in order to create an organization that gathers the group’s activities into one single subsidiary per country. The Netherlands were the first to be concerned with the creation of Thales Nederland.
The activities of defense and security represent 60% of Thales’s activities and cover an exceptional range of equipment, systems and services destined to military and civilian security forces including:
- Land defense with missile systems, optronic equipment and armored cars.
- Missions and defense with airborne surveillance systems, underwater and surface fight systems and naval systems or drones.
- Air operations with radar equipment, navigation aid equipment, air defense and air traffic control systems.
- C41 defense and security systems with radiocommunication equipment, Information technology security system, infrastructures networks and systems, protection and critical information system.
The remaining 40% of Thales’ activities concerns aerospace and transportation and includes activities aimed to improve the efficiency, reliability and safety of trade and transport with:
- Avionic and its wide range of onboard equipment and functions and simulation and training solutions for civil and military aircrafts.
- Space with satellite space communications or payloads, the fields of observation, science, navigation and infrastructures.
- The Transport system with the signalization of railway lines and urban networks, integrated supervision systems and the ticketing systems.
In addition to these different areas of activity, Thales also carries out an activity related to radiofrequency sources, microwave sources and imaging subsystems in relation with all the other divisions. It is Thales electron devices that produces radio frequency and microwave sources for communication satellites. The group is the leader in this market worldwide.
Thales is also developing it activities in the field of drones with tactical drones, micro-UAVs, combat drones, anti-drone defense, and everything related to this field.