Lagardère Group

Infobox_Company
company_name = Lagardère SCA
company_
company_type = Public (Euronext|MMB)
foundation = 1996
location = Paris, France
key_people = Arnaud Lagardère (General partner and CEO), Raymond Lévy (Chairman of the board)
industry = Conglomerate
products = Books, magazines, radio stations, audiovisual production, sports broadcasting rights, retail outlets, advertising sales, holding in EADS
revenue = €8.582 billion (2007)cite web |url=http://www.lagardere.com/fichiers/fckeditor/File/Relations_investisseurs/Publications/2008/doc_ref_2007_en.pdf |title=Annual Report 2007 |accessdate=2008-07-13 |publisher=Lagardère|format=PDF]
operating_income = profit €636 million (2007)
net_income = profit €534 million (2007)
num_employees = 27,600 (2007)
subsid = Lagardère Media, Lagardère Active, Lagardère Services, Lagardère Sports
homepage = [http://www.lagardere.com www.lagardere.com]
intl = yes

Lagardère SCA (Euronext|MMB) is a French conglomerate formerly known as Matra, with holdings in publishing, retail, media, and aerospace. The firm is a société en commandite par actions or limited partnership.

History

Lagardère was incorporated on September 24 1980 as a holding company.

Matra was privatized in 1988, with Lagardère holding 6% of the stock and by 1992, 25%. In December 1992 the group was radically restructured:
*Lagardère absorbed Arjil, its parent company;
*Lagardère received shares in Matra (from Floirat, Daimler Benz and GEC) and the holding group of Hachette, Marlis (from Floirat, Crédit Lyonnais and Aberly);
*Matra and Hachette were merged to form Matra Hachette, of which Lagardère held 37.6%;
*Lagardère's legal status was changed from a corporation (société anonyme or SA) to a limited partnership with shares (société en commandite par actions or SCA).

Following a share swap in 1994 Lagardère held 93.3% of Matra Hachette’s stock. In 1996 Matra Hachette was formally merged into Lagardère.

In 1999 the defence arm, Matra Hautes Technologies, merged with Aérospatiale to form Aérospatiale-Matra. On July 10 2000 Aérospatiale-Matra became part of EADS.

On 23 October 2002 Lagardère announced the purchase of Vivendi Universal Publishing, with the exception of Houghton Mifflin.

Organization

*Media
**Lagardère Media (100%)
***Lagardère Active
****CanalSat (34%)
***Hachette Filipacchi Médias (the world's largest magazine publisher)
***Hachette Livre
***Virgin Megastore
***Hachette Book Group USA
***Little, Brown Book Group
***Hachette Distribution Services
****Hachette Distribution Services Retail North America (HDS RNA) [http://www.hdsrna.com/]
*****Relay (retail brand)
*****Watermark (book store)
*****Virgin Books & Music
*****United Cigar Store
*****Great Canadian News
*****XPress
****Newslink
***LMPI - Maisons de la Presse Internationale [http://www.lmpi.com/en/default.asp]
***Curtis Circulation Company [http://www.curtiscirc.com/]
*High Technologies
**EADS (15.1%, to be reduced to 7.5% in 2009) [cite news|url=http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/04/05/business/eads.php|title=2 top firms cut stakes in EADS|date=5 April 2006|work=International Herald Tribune|accessdate=2008-07-13] held through wholly-owned subsidiary Désirade, which in turn holds 50% of SOGEADE.

Management

* Jean-Luc Lagardère, former CEO, now deceased
* Arnaud Lagardère, his son, current CEO

See also

*Media concentration
*Bruce Fancher

References

External links

* [http://www.lagardere.com/ Lagardère website (in French)]
** [http://www.lagardere.com/us/ (in English)]
* [http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/41/41009.html Yahoo! - Lagardère SCA Company Profile]