Pechiney
Pechiney (Pechiney Ugine Kuhlmann) was a traditional French industrial group with headquarters in Paris and headquarters in Lyon , which was active in the field of aluminum extraction and processing, packaging , chemical production and nuclear fuels .
history
The origin of the Pechiney group goes back to the middle of the 19th century. In 1855 Henry Merle founded a factory for the production of sodium carbonate , clay, copper sulfate and numerous other sulfites in Salindres in the south of France . At the time, it was the only one in the world that produced aluminum chemically.
Thirty years later, in 1886, Paul Héroult (1863–1914) invented a process with which the bauxite could be prepared for electrolysis, which is still essentially the basis of this industry today.
The name Pechiney is one of the surnames of the successor to the company's founder, Alfred Rangod (1833–1916), who after the early death of his father soon took on the family name of his stepfather “Péchiney” (synonymous with Pitchounet, the little one). After Pechiney initially decided against manufacturing aluminum using this new method in 1888 and only wanted to produce the aluminum base material alumina in Salindres in the south of France, the company changed this strategy again in 1897 with the purchase of the first aluminum factory in Calypso, Savoie. Numerous other works were added later, especially St. Jean-en-Maurienne (1907).
From the turn of the century, aluminum was at the center of corporate activities. Its variable and diversified uses have been continuously expanded through the merger with other companies.
Aluminum is still one of its most important activities today, to which other metallurgical and chemical, nuclear and packaging industry activities have been added.
The importance of Pechiney for the French and German economy can perhaps be seen in the fact that the directors of Péchiney et Ugine planned to do one together with the Junkers factories at the end of 1942 in June 1941, i.e. 12 months after the German occupation of France during World War II Build aluminum smelter. But the Junkers factories associated with IG Farben and Hansa Leichtmetall AG broke the deal. On the night of March 4th to 5th, 1944, Resistante Jean Vial carried out an explosive attack on the plant in Gardanne with a weight of thirty kilograms , with no human casualties. The factory was shut down and only reopened five months later, after the liberation.
In 1971 the Compagnie Pechiney SA merged with Ugine Kuhlmann to form Pechiney Ugine Kuhlmann (PUK), which developed into the first private industrial group in France in the field of electrochemistry, electrometallurgy and partly organic chemistry. In 1982 the Péchiney group was nationalized. In 1995 the group was re-privatized under its president JP Rodier.
In connection with the takeover of the New York- based American subsidiary of Triangle, the packaging company American National Can (ANC), insider trading took place in November 1988 , known as the "Péchiney-Triangle affair". The American stock exchange supervisory authority was surprisingly quick to find out about insider trading, which led to investigations against the company managers involved, who were posted by the French state.
In 2003 the French group Pechiney was hostile to the Canadian Alcan group for the purchase price of € 3.4 billion. With 2001 sales of € 11.9 billion, Pechiney was the fourth largest aluminum producer in the world. It was listed on the Euronext Paris Stock Exchange and was part of the Euronext 100 stock index . Since then, numerous restructurings have taken place, through which parts of the Pechiney group that deal with rolled products form their own company ("spin-off") under the Novelis company .
Today the former Pechiney is active in two production fields: the aluminum and the packaging industry. The products are used in the automobile -, air - and space industry, in the Navy and used in construction. 320 companies worldwide belonged to Péchiney with 34,500 employees when it was taken over, including an aluminum press plant in Landau in the Palatinate .
Corporate management
- Pierre Grezel 1971–1972
- Pierre Jouven 1972-1975
- Philippe Thomas 1975–1982
- Georges Besse 1982–1985
- Bernard Pache 1985-1987
- Jean Gandois 1987-1994
- Jean-Pierre Rodier 1994-2003
