ALAIN GOMEZ HAS resigned as chairman of the Thomson defence and media business, following the French Government's announcement that it plans to privatise the group with its present, tangled, holding structure in place.
The privatisation has been pending for at least two years, but Gomez has argued that the group should first be restructured. He will be replaced, by Marcel Roulet, once chairman of France Telecom.
Under Thomson's existing structure, the parent company is owned 76% by the French Government, with the state-owned France Telecom holding another 20% and the rest being held mainly by banks.
In turn, the holding company owns the whole of the Thomson Multimedia consumer-electronics business and 58% of the Thomson-CSF defence-electronics group, the remainder of which is already publicly traded. Thomson-CSF also has a 66% stake in Sextant Avionique.
The poor financial state of the Multimedia business, which is responsible for a large slice of the group's Fr20 billion ($4 billion) debt, has complicated efforts to privatise the group and Gomez argued that Thomson-CSF should be sold separately as a stand-alone defence business. Alternatively, the control of the consumer-electronics group could have been transferred from the holding company to Thomson-CSF.
French president Jacques Chirac appears to have ruled out either of these alternatives, saying that the group will be sold in its present form. The privatisation process, which is due to take around a year is nevertheless, raising interest from other European defence-electronics groups, keen to secure a tie-up with Thomson-CSF. The UK's GEC, is among the prime candidates, with Matra and Alcatel in France also likely partners.
During his 14-year tenure as chairman at both the holding company and Thomson-CSF, Gomez built up the defence subsidiary with acquisitions totaling some Fr15 billion since 1989.
Source: Flight International