Nexter Systems

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Nexter SA

logo
legal form Société Anonyme
founding 2006
Seat Roanne , Loire department , FranceFranceFrance 
management Stéphane Mayer (since 2015)
Number of employees 3323 (2014)
sales 1048 million euros (2014)
Branch Defense industry
Website nexter-group.fr
Status: 2014

Main battle tank Leclerc

Nexter SA is a French arms company that emerged in 2006 from the state-owned Giat Industries . Classic focuses of business activity are above all wheeled and tracked vehicles as well as handguns and ammunition. Nexter is also a supplier for shipyards and the aviation industry.

history

The origins of the French arms industry can be found at the beginning of the 17th century, when a magasin royal des armes de la Bastille was founded in Paris under the rule of Louis XIV . Following this example, armaments factories were gradually built up in the province. For example the Manufacture d'armes de Saint-Étienne (1764), takeover of the Manufacture nationale d'armes de Tulle (1777), in Bourges (1865), Tarbes (1870) and Roanne (1918). Some significant inventions in the field of weapons development were made; The engineer Jean-Baptiste Vaquette developed new types of artillery and reformed the artillery in the mid-18th century. That was one of the reasons for the superiority of the French troops during the coalition wars . The Chassepot rifle developed in the mid-1850s and the first French FT tank also came from these arms factories.

After the French surrender in World War II (June 1940) and the liberation by the Western Allies in 1944, the newly elected government decided to combine the armaments factories in the DEFA (Direction des Études et Fabrications d'Armes). This merger resulted in international export hits such as the AMX-13 tank . The reorganization ended in 1971 with the establishment of GIAT (Groupement Industriel de l'Armement Terrestre).

Restructuring in 1990 and 2006

Giat Industries logo

Giat Industries was founded in July 1990 . But with the end of the Cold War , the market environment also changed for Giat. As in other western countries, the need for battle tanks and artillery systems also fell in France. A further complicating factor for Giat was the fact that a new battle tank, the Leclerc , was to be introduced into the French armed forces in the early 1990s . This came "too late" and was therefore manufactured in far fewer numbers than comparable models such as the M1A1 or the Leopard 2 . The company was in serious deficit and suffered from overcapacity, bureaucratic structures and a product portfolio that was not geared towards the new, asymmetrical threats. A painful restructuring was the result. Giat Industries formally remained in existence, but a large part of the operative business was transferred to the new subsidiary Nexter in 2006.

Of the 15,000 or so jobs that were previously available, only 3,000 were left in 2009. The number of locations has been reduced from 14 to 7. At the same time, however, a significant part of the production was also outsourced. The share of suppliers in the costs has risen from 58% (1998) to over 80% (2008). The company generated the third annual profit in a row in the 2008 financial year. Nevertheless it remains heavily dependent on the orders of the French army; only 17% of sales were made abroad.

fusion

On July 1, 2014, the German armaments company KMW and Nexter decided to join forces under a 50:50 holding company called KANT ( acronym for KMW And Nexter Together ) by spring 2015 . The contract was signed on July 29, 2015. The company operates under the name KNDS (KMW + NEXTER Defense Systems) and is based in Amsterdam .

Products

The company develops and produces a wide variety of military equipment for the French army and for foreign armies:

Web links

Commons : Nexter  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ NEXTER Group - Mentions légales. In: nexter-group.fr. Nexter Group, accessed on July 29, 2015 (French): "[...] de la société Nexter Systems, société anonyme [...]"
  2. ↑ Thomas Hanke, Markus Fasse, Martin Murphy: Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Nexter merge. In: handelsblatt.com. July 27, 2015, accessed July 29, 2015 .
  3. ↑ GIAT Industries / Nexter Systems. In: GlobalSecurity.org. July 22, 2014, accessed July 29, 2015 .
  4. ↑ Report annuel 2014. (Flipbook (requires Flash Player)) In: cimaya.fr. Nexter Group, 2014, accessed July 29, 2015 (French).
  5. ↑ Alexis Peigné: Le projet KANT ou l'idée d'un Airbus de l'armement terrestre. In: portail-ie.fr. Portail de l'IE, April 1, 2015, accessed on July 29, 2015 (French).
  6. ^ Franco-German armaments company decided. In: orf.at. ORF , July 1, 2014, accessed on July 29, 2015 .
  7. ↑ Stefan Simons: Kraus-Maffei and Nexter want to merge. In: Spiegel Online . July 1, 2014, accessed July 29, 2015 .
  8. ↑ Johannes C. Bockenheimer: Armaments cooperation KMW and Nexter become Kant. In: tagesspiegel.de. Der Tagesspiegel , July 29, 2015, accessed on July 29, 2015 .