Answer: The Thales Group
The Thales Group (Euronext: HO) is a French electronics company delivering information systems and services for the Aerospace, Defense, and Security markets. The headquarters are in Neuilly-sur-Seine (in the suburbs of Paris), and its stock is listed on the Euronext Paris.
The company changed its name to Thales from Thomson-CSF in December 2000 shortly after the £1,300 million acquisition of Racal Electronics plc, a UK defence electronics group. It is now partially state-owned by the French State, and has operations in more than 50 countries. It has 68,000 employees and generated €12.9 billion in revenues in 2009. The Group is ranked as the 485th largest company by Fortune 500 Global and is the 9th largest defence contractor in the world. 63% of its total sales are military sales.
Significant changes have occurred since the largest private shareholder, Alcatel, sold its stake in Thales to Dassault. The CEO for many years, Denis Ranque, was replaced by Luc Vigneron (formerly of the much smaller state-controlled armoured vehicle manufactuirer Nexus) who has initiated an extensive re-organisation.
The Thales Group is named after the Greek philosopher Thales.
