Alcatel SEL

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Alcatel SEL AG

logo
legal form Corporation
founding 1992
resolution 2006
Reason for dissolution Company merger to form Alcatel-Lucent Germany
Seat Stuttgart - Zuffenhausen
management CEO

(successively):

  • Roland Mecklinger
  • Gottfried Dutiné
  • Andreas Bernhard
  • Reinhard Hutter
  • Wolfgang Weik
Number of employees
  • approx. 21,000 (1994)
  • approx. 13,800 (1997)
  • approx. 5,200 (2005)
sales
  • approx. 5.35 billion DM (1994)
  • approx. 5.7 billion DM (1997)
  • approx. 1.2 billion euros (2005)
Branch Telecommunication equipment

The Alcatel SEL AG , based in Stuttgart - Zuffenhausen was a daughter of the former telecommunications equipment supplier Alcatel . It was considered the successor to Standard Elektrik Lorenz AG (SEL), founded in 1958 , a conglomerate in the electrical industry that, as part of the American International Telephone and Telegraph (ITT), had become one of the ten largest German companies in the 1960s and 1970s. After being sold to the French Compagnie Générale d'Électricité (CGE), the company ran into economic difficulties at the end of the 1980s. Under the umbrella of Alcatel NV , a subsidiary of the CGE , only one core of the company remained around the communications technology , which from 1993 traded as Alcatel SEL AG .

The Alcatel SEL AG was active in six business areas: switching systems, transmission systems, radio systems, railways, defense and office communication. In reunified Germany , the company played a key role in setting up the telecommunications infrastructure in the new federal states. Its size continued to decrease in tough international competition and through the sale of areas and subsidiaries that were no longer part of the core business.

At the end of 2006, the parent company , which had meanwhile been renamed Alcatel SA , merged with the American Lucent Technologies, Inc. to form Alcatel-Lucent SA A little later, the new group merged Alcatel SEL AG with the investments brought in by Lucent in Nuremberg to form Alcatel-Lucent Deutschland AG . In 2011, the group formally relocated the management of the business of its foreign subsidiaries, which had previously been largely carried out by the group headquarters, to Paris . Areas remaining with the company now belong to the Finnish company Nokia , which took over Alcatel-Lucent at the beginning of 2016 through a share swap .

history

prehistory

The company's roots go back to the early days of the German electrical industry , above all to the two companies originally founded as telegraph construction companies in Berlin , C. Lorenz from 1880 and Mix & Genest from 1897. Both were founded around 1930 by the American International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation (ITT) or its holding company for the German Reich Standard Elektrizitäts-Gesellschaft (SEG). During the Second World War they were turned into pure arms factories and largely destroyed by the effects of the war. ITT relocated the reconstruction of its daughters in the still young Federal Republic of Germany to Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen and merged all of its holdings one after the other until 1958 into just one company, Standard Elektrik Lorenz AG .

As with its parent companies, Standard Elektrik Lorenz's business was largely shaped by government contracts. Especially as an office building company for the German Federal Post Office . In addition to the traditional strength of C. Lorenz as a pioneer in radio technology , the company was also a supplier in the field of aerospace technology , an industrial partner for BOS radio and, after rearmament , supplied equipment for the German armed forces , especially field telephones and radio equipment. A large area also supplied traffic technology for Deutsche Bahn . Several attempts to penetrate the computer and information technology market were unsustainable, but led to the production of peripheral devices or software. A large area for entertainment electronics with the brands "Schaub-Lorenz" and "Graetz" was the first part of the company that was separated and sold to the Finnish Nokia at the beginning of 1988 . The standard electrical system Lorenz, usually only abbreviated as SEL , shone through innovations and received a large number of patents, but did not have the necessary size and financial strength in any business area to seriously question the position of the market leader Siemens . The parent company ITT did not succeed in making the leap from Europe to the home market dominated by AT&T in the United States and finally decided to exit when sales and profits fell in the 1980s.

The Compagnie Générale d'Électricité (CGE) from Paris , with its business so far limited to France in a similar situation, believed in a "wedding of the century with ITT" that it could forge a world-class telecommunications supplier that would fundamentally change the situation. As a result, Alcatel NV was founded in 1987 , already represented in 75 countries and with an arithmetical world market share of approx. 12% the second largest manufacturer after AT&T . The timing seemed right. The previously strictly regulated markets with contracts only to domestic industry began - starting in Germany - to open up to competition. At Standard Elektrik Lorenz , only a little later took the risk to take advantage of the thaw in Eastern Europe and German reunification and to conquer a new market that was estimated at several hundred billion DM. An expensive misjudgment. Market opening in Western Europe was also progressing more slowly than expected. In France, the state-owned CGE, which had come under financial pressure, tended to turn back the wheel. Disagreements in management as a result of a radically changed leadership style and scandals involving leading figures intensified the crisis dramatically. Under the umbrella of Alcatel NV , SEL's traditional business areas were also put to the test and, if they were not part of the core business and generated profits, gradually sold or closed. The company had to announce redundancies at ever shorter intervals.

Alcatel SEL

In 1992 the company core that remained in the group changed its name to Alcatel SEL AG . The year before, the French parent company had also changed its name from Compagnie Générale d'Électricité to Alcatel-Alsthom . The economic situation continued to deteriorate under the new name. In the area of ​​telephone systems, telephone exchange or radio relay systems, Alcatel SEL suffered a loss of around one million marks a day in 1994. On April 28, the board announced that it would close the main plant in Stuttgart and give up the Mannheim and eastern German Rochlitz sites . At the end of the year the loss was 500 million DM. Around 5,000 of the 21,000 employees were to be cut by the end of 1995. Gerhard Zeidler , the in spring 1989, the employee representatives on the supervisory board against the wishes of the French as CEO of SEL had prevailed, was Peter Landsberg replaced as speaker of a largely new management team occupied.

A political initiative was formed to maintain the plant in Mannheim- Käfertal . The city of Mannheim invested half a million DM, the state government of Baden-Württemberg and the European Union contributed a total of 4 million DM. In addition, the Landeskreditbank bought the company property for 16 million DM and then leased it back to Alcatel SEL . A technology park was planned on the space that would become available. According to an agreement in July 1995, the so-called “Mannheim Declaration”, the Stuttgart company was to keep 410 jobs in Mannheim permanently. In 1997, Alcatel SEL again declared that the plant would have to close at the end of the year. The union IG Metall and the works council announced bitter resistance and in politics the plans were viewed as a breach of contract. CEO Roland Mecklinger stated that the paper negotiated under his predecessor Peter Landsberg and signed by a board colleague was merely a "declaration of intent desired by politicians", to which he was not bound. In addition to the numerous labor court processes that had already been carried out at the various locations with works councils and trade unions about controversial decisions or because promises were not kept, the City of Mannheim brought a lawsuit in June 1997. Prime Minister Erwin Teufel was publicly upset that the agreement was “not a coffee party” and countered Mecklinger's offer to pay compensation with the words: “We don't want money, we want to keep jobs”. Public contracts for the defense technology, which was mainly manufactured in Mannheim, could not or did not want to procure SEL, and the closure could not be prevented by legal means. Ultimately, it was only about an amount for the social plan .

In the later years, Stuttgart did without a distinction and used the same logo as the parent company from France

In 1997, Alcatel SEL AG had around 13,800 employees who achieved sales of DM 5.7 billion. In September the company sold its motors and fans division including its subsidiary Hans Heynau GmbH . This means that the entire Landshut site with around 600 employees went to ebm Industrie GmbH from Mulfingen , now Ebm-papst . In the following year, the “Defense Electronics” and “Alcatel Air Navigation Systems” divisions were sold to Thomson CSF , a predecessor of the Thales Group formed in 2000 .

At the general meeting in July 2001, Andreas Bernhard , the new CEO of Alcatel SEL since March 2000, stated that he could not make any statements about the outsourcing plans of Alcatel boss Serge Tchuruk . The Frenchman had announced that the telecommunications equipment supplier would soon be a company without factories (original sound: "fabless"). In Germany, plants in Arnstadt , Bonndorf , Dresden , Warstein and Gunzenhausen with a total of 2500 employees were affected. After massive criticism from unions, the corporate management rowed back at least partially. Shortly before, the parent company had negotiated a merger of the two companies with the American company Lucent Technologies . However, the future ownership structure and control of the management could not be agreed upon and the talks broke off. The plans presented by the group to cut jobs went beyond the level familiar from previous years. Around every tenth job out of 9,000 jobs in Germany has been cut. Nationwide, around 3,000 workers demonstrated to defend themselves against "termination in advance". Nonetheless, these and a further 1,400 jobs fell victim to the red pen the following year.

In November 2002, the company in Stuttgart put a UMTS test network into operation for developers who could now try out their applications in the so-called "3G Reality Center". The network supplier had already set up similar centers in Kuala Lumpur , Lisbon , Malmö , Paris, Shanghai and Taipei .

After "differing views on business policy" had arisen, Andreas Bernhard left the company in spring 2004, and 18 months later he took on a new role in the Communications department at Siemens . The Stuttgart-Zuffenhausen production site was closed on June 30, 2005, and most of the employees were taken over by the American IT service provider CTDI . The entire main site with an area of ​​249,000 m 2 was sold to Deltona Real Estate GmbH in the same year , but leased back for company administration and for the demolition or renovation of the building. At the end of 2005, Alcatel still had around 5,200 employees in Stuttgart, Arnstadt , Berlin, Bonndorf and Hanover , with whom it achieved a turnover of 1.2 billion euros.

successor

The parent company Alcatel SA and Lucent-Technologies, Inc. resumed merger talks. After they finally merged to Alcatel-Lucent on December 1, 2006 , the new group retroactively transferred all shares in Lucent Technologies Network Systems GmbH from Nuremberg to Alcatel SEL AG in the course of 2007 and merged the two subsidiaries with each other . The remaining company was renamed Alcatel-Lucent Deutschland AG and the previously continued abbreviation “SEL” was dropped.

In the course of the merger, the SEL transport division was also sold to Thales Group . The remaining subsidiary of Alcatel-Lucent, Dunkermotoren , a manufacturer of drive systems in Bonndorf , went to the German-Swedish private equity company Triton Partners in 2009 , which sold the company to Ametek in 2012 .

On January 1, 2011, Alcatel-Lucent introduced the “principal model”. From this point in time, the social risk, the exercise of the factors determining the value creation and all essential assets were transferred from the German subsidiary to its "principal", Alcatel-Lucent International SAS , based in Boulogne-Billancourt . The operations in Berlin, Bonn , Hanover , Munich and Neu-Isenburg were closed in the course of 2013 as part of a concentration on the German main locations of the former companies in Stuttgart (Alcatel SEL) and Nuremberg (Lucent Technologies). At the same time, the subsidiaries Alcatel-Lucent Networks GmbH and Alcatel-Lucent Internetworking Deutschland GmbH were dissolved and their business was transferred to Alcatel-Lucent Deutschland AG . In autumn 2014, Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise , the enterprise division of the company, was sold to the investment company China Huaxin for 202 million euros .

In April 2015, the Finnish company Nokia presented the Alcatel-Lucent group with a takeover offer for 15.6 billion euros in shares. After the successful conclusion of this deal, both companies appeared together under the name Nokia on January 14, 2016. Insofar as “Alcatel” and “Alcatel-Lucent” continue to be used, these are only their former partners or former sub-areas who contractually secured the brand name and its continued use when they were separated.

Company health insurance

The company health insurance fund of Standard Elektrik Lorenz changed its name to Alcatel SEL BKK . At the end of 2006 it had around 60,000 insured persons. She no longer went over to Alcatel-Lucent Deutschland AG . On January 1, 2007, it merged with BKK futur , which was roughly the same size and which was created in 1996 as an association of numerous smaller company health insurance funds , which was merged into the BKK Verkehrsbau Union (BKK VBU) on January 1, 2012 .

Alcatel SEL Foundation

The non-profit foundation founded by Standard Elektrik Lorenz on October 21, 1979 to promote research that contributes to better interaction between people and technology in communication systems adapted its name to the new company name. By the time it celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2004, under the motto “for humane technology”, it had sponsored more than 500 lectures and over 150 publications. In addition to the research award for technical communication , the highest endowed individual award for extra-industrial research with 20,000 euros, up to two completed economic dissertations on the subject of "communication and information technology" were each awarded a prize of 5,000 euros.

After the creation of Alcatel-Lucent , the name of the foundation was again adapted to the company name to Alcatel-Lucent Foundation for Communication Research . In mid-2015, the foundation stated on its website that due to the economic situation of its donors, future work was uncertain. It seems to have ceased its activity since then.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Alcatel SEL AG generates a loss of 547 million marks in '94 . In the archive of Computerwoche , May 26, 1995, accessed on May 19, 2016
  2. ↑ a b Patricia Russo has big savings plans as head of Alcatel / Lucent . In: Heise online , April 3, 2006, accessed on May 18, 2016
  3. ↑ a b Alcatel-Lucent Germany - We have history ( Memento from June 23, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). In: Museum workshop on the Alcatel-Lucent website , accessed on May 21, 2016
  4. ↑ Nokia announces settlement of its public exchange offer for Alcatel-Lucent securities, the registration of new shares and its inclusion in the CAC 40 index ( Memento of the original from June 2, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and still Not checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Nokia Press Release, January 7, 2016, accessed April 27, 2016 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / company.nokia.com
  5. ↑ Remeasured . In: Der Spiegel , December 21, 1987 (No. 52/1987), accessed on May 17, 2016
  6. ↑ Merger plans at CGE and the SEL parent ITT . In the archive of Computerwoche , July 4, 2016, accessed on May 19, 2016
  7. ^ Claudia Rose: The state as a customer and sponsor. A German-French comparison . Volume 7 of the series on social policy and state activity , Springer Fachmedien 1995, ISBN 978-3-663-09631-3 , p. 219
    ( limited preview in Google book search)
  8. ↑ Strange calculation . In: Der Spiegel , April 22, 1991 (No. 17/1991), accessed on May 18, 2016
  9. ↑ Heinz Blüthmann: The company paid for everything . In: Die Zeit , December 30, 1988, accessed on May 15, 2016
  10. ↑ Haggling like never before . In: Der Spiegel , November 14, 1994 (No. 46/1994), accessed on May 17, 2016
  11. ↑ Gerhard Holzwart: Alcatel: Search for success with new plans and an old pioneering spirit . In the archive of Computerwoche , May 5, 1995, accessed on May 17, 2016.
  12. ↑ a b German Bundestag : Printed matter 13/7633 of May 13, 1997 . In: Documentation and information system for parliamentary processes , accessed on May 16, 2016
  13. ^ A b Felix Kurz: Greetings from Teufel . In: Der Spiegel , July 21, 1997 (No. 30/1997), accessed on May 17, 2016
  14. ↑ MARCHIVUM : Chronicle star . June 27, 1997. Retrieved September 27, 2018 .
  15. ↑ Alcatel SEL sells Landshut location to ebm . Press release on: Press portal , September 15, 1997, accessed on June 21, 2018
  16. ↑ Alcatel SEL integrates defense electronics with Thomson CSF . In the archive of Computerwoche , November 24, 1997, accessed on May 13, 2016
  17. ↑ Alcatel is considering selling five German factories . In the archive of Computerwoche , July 9, 2001, accessed on June 2, 2016
  18. ↑ Alcatel "Cancellation in advance" . In: Manager Magazin , November 20, 2001, accessed June 2, 2016
  19. ↑ Swabian test laboratory . In: Manager Magazin , November 27, 2011, accessed June 2, 2016
  20. ↑ Siemens brings former Alcatel SEL boss to the Com board . In the archive of Computerwoche , August 25, 2008, accessed on June 2, 2016
  21. ↑ Telecom supplier Alcatel is cutting 900 jobs . In: Heise online , June 29, 2004, accessed on June 2, 2016
  22. ↑ Alcatel-Lucent Germany opens redesigned campus in Stuttgart after three years of renovation ( Memento from June 2, 2016 in the Internet Archive ). Press release on: Alcatel-Lucent.com , July 1, 2008, accessed June 2, 2016
  23. ↑ Patricia Russo, as the head of Alcatel / Lucent, has big savings plans . In: Heise online , April 3, 2006, accessed on May 18, 2016
  24. ↑ US company buys Dunkermotoren . In: Handelsblatt , April 26, 2012, accessed on April 28, 2016
  25. ↑ Björn Greif: Alcatel-Lucent sells enterprise business to Chinese investor . In: ZDNet , October 2, 2014, accessed on April 26, 2016
  26. ↑ Varinia Bernau: Nokia offers 15.6 billion for rival Alcatel. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . April 15, 2015, accessed April 28, 2015 .
  27. ↑ Andreas Wilkens: Nokia secures control over Alcatel-Lucent . In: Heise online , January 4, 2016, accessed April 27, 2016
  28. ↑ Wolf Siegert: (1) 25th anniversary . On DaybyDay ISSN 1860-2967 , October 21, 2004, accessed May 17, 2016
  29. ^ Alcatel-Lucent Foundation - News . On the foundation website www.stiftungaktuell.de , accessed on May 16, 2016.

Coordinates: 48 ° 49 '55.5 "  N , 9 ° 9' 7.7"  E