ERAP

ERAP is an investment company of the State of France with headquarters in Paris . It has the legal form of an Établissement public à caractère industriel et commercial (EPIC), which translates as a public institution of industrial and commercial character.

ERAP has three main tasks:

it holds strategic interests in the energy, telecommunications and pharmaceutical industries for the French government,
it finances state company investments,
she is a technical advisor to the government on issues of industrial policy and economic strategy.

Corporate management

The ERAP steering committee consists of nine directors appointed by the French Council of Ministers . It consists of four professionally qualified members “from outside” appointed by government decree and four inter-ministerial “government representatives” (two each for the Ministry of Industry and Energy and the Ministry of Economics and Finance). One government representative and one outside member are always responsible for one of the four areas of budget, finance, industry and energy. The ninth and highest member is the chairperson, who also acts as CEO . The current chairperson of ERAP is Anne Duthilleul . She is married to the chief architect of the French state railways SNCF , Jean-Marie Duthilleul, and was known in France as one of the first seven female students at the École polytechnique under her maiden name Anne Chopinet as early as the 1970s .

The activities of the ERAP are supervised by a government commissioner (“Commissaire du Gouvernement”) appointed by the minister of industry and by a government auditor-general. Finally, there is an external auditor (commissaire aux comptes) who is currently being provided by the consulting firm Ernst & Young .

In addition to the board of directors, there is a three-person management team: Anne Duthilleul ( CEO ), Michel Ferrier (Vice-CEO) and Marie Laure Payen ( CFO ). Finally, there is an informal working group that monitors developments in the telecommunications sector on behalf of the steering committee and prepares regular analyzes of these.

history

ERAP came into being at the instigation of then President Charles de Gaulle - with the task of forming a French oil and gas company - on December 17, 1965 through the merger of the two state-owned companies Régie Autonomie des Pétroles (RAP) and Bureau de Recherches de Pétrole (BRP ) to the state-owned holding Entreprise de recherches et d'activités pétrolières (ERAP), which was soon renamed Elf Aquitaine (→ details in the article History of oil production in France ). The Elf group was later privatized and merged with TotalFina to TotalFinaElf in 2000 ; today it operates as Total SA

In the course of preparing the France Télécom IPO in 2003, ERAP financed the acquisition of the majority stake of the French state and still holds a minority share, closely coordinated with the direct participation of the French government in the telecommunications group.

In the raw materials sector, ERAP was involved in the restructuring of the IMETAL group (today Imerys ), in particular in the privatization, conversion and acquisition of Société Le Nickel (today's Eramet ), during which the entry into the nuclear group Cogema took place (with the aim of a French mining group), which later merged into the Areva group. With a further project to “accompany” a development project for the mining and processing of nickel on the New Caledonia archipelago in the Pacific Ocean, which belongs to France, it was not ERAP directly, but Anne Duthilleul personally from the French government “on the basis of mutual trust” (intuitu personae ) entrusted. However, ERAP supports the ERAP boss in this mission.

The long-time head of the ERAP was the former French defense minister and founder of the DGSS foreign intelligence service , Pierre Guillaumat , so that the ERAP offered the French intelligence service an excellent cover and immense financial resources for its presence in Africa.

Holdings

France Télécom (telecommunications group): 3.49% (as of June 30, 2008); However, ERAP is not represented on the board
Areva (nuclear energy company): 3.21% (as of 2008); ERAP is not represented on the Areva board either, but ERAP chair Anne Duthilleul has been director of Areva subsidiary Areva NC (the former Cogema ) since 2000 .

Web links

ERAP website

Remarks

↑ This legal form, which emerged in the course of the privatization of state-owned companies, has some non-university research institutions in France such as the CEA ² and CNES , but also institutions as diverse as the Paris Opera and Basel Mulhouse Freiburg Airport . In contrast to institutions of a scientific and technological nature ( Etablissements publics à caractère scientifique et technologique , EPST), the staff at EPIC do not have the status of civil servants.
↑ See fr: Anne Chopinet

[1] This legal form, which emerged in the course of the privatization of state-owned companies, has some non-university research institutions in France such as the CEA ² and CNES , but also institutions as diverse as the Paris Opera and Basel Mulhouse Freiburg Airport . In contrast to institutions of a scientific and technological nature ( Etablissements publics à caractère scientifique et technologique , EPST), the staff at EPIC do not have the status of civil servants.

[2] See fr: Anne Chopinet