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The nearly 10,000 Belgian employees of the service company Equans, a subsidiary of Engie, will soon be given a new owner: the French group Bouygues. The deal, worth 7.1 billion euros, was politically sensitive in France.
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Equans is the umbrella organization for all of Engie’s non-energy activities in the world. The company has 74,000 employees worldwide, a turnover of 12 billion euros and is active in electrical installations, cooling and heating systems, fire protection, ICT and robotics, public lighting and building management.
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The energy group had wanted to get rid of its daughter for some time in order to simplify and focus on its core activities. There were three candidates in the running. In addition to the construction, telecom and media group Bouygues, also the French construction company Eiffage and the private equity player Bain Capital from the US.
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Sensitive
The choice for exclusive negotiations now falls on Bouygues, Engie announced on Friday night in a short press release. Favorite Bouygues scored the best in all areas, according to Engie. The deal for the acquisition of 100 percent of Equans values the company at 7.1 billion euros. That is one billion higher than amounts that circulated earlier.
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As is often the case in France, the sale of such a strategically important company was politically sensitive. Various sources reported that President Emmanuel Macron’s preference went to Bouygues, also French.
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For example, the critical newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné gave the floor to a banker who noted that Engie chose Rothschild, Macron’s former employer and Bouygues’ house banker, as the investment bank.
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Bouygues does a lot of business with the French state and Martin Bouygues is an ally of Macron, the Financial Times wrote. He also owns the major French television channel TF1, and may soon also own its smaller rival M6, with which a merger is imminent.
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Equans profiles itself as a world leader in multi-technical services. In our country, for example, the company is working on the largest aircraft hangar for the Ministry of Defense, a new climate system for supermarket chain Aldi or the company is mapping the energy consumption of hospitals.
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ACV Metea demands clarity
Metals union ACV-CSC Metea demanded in a press release about the deal ‘clarity in the very short term’ on Saturday about the industrial and future plan of the acquirer for Equans Belgium, which has almost 10,000 employees and a turnover of 2 billion euros.
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The trade union organization regrets the total absence of Belgian politics in the file, despite its importance for employment, and that there is no question of any Belgian anchoring: France remains the determining power within the Belgian branch.
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For ACV Metea it is essential that all Belgian employees can keep their job with their terms of employment. ‘There has been very little transparency about this to date.’ The union also points out that Bouygues is buying a Belgian company that is itself in full transition, due to the transfer of personnel from the former separate companies such as Cofely and Axima to the ‘old’ Engie Fabricom. ACV wants Bouygues to clarify quickly whether new changes are on the way.
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