Saint-Gobain
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Saint-Gobain headquarters in Courbevoie, near Paris
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| Euronext: SGO | |
| Société Anonyme | |
| Industry | Building materials |
| Founded | 1665 |
| Headquarters | La Défense, Courbevoie, France |
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Area served
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Worldwide |
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Key people
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Pierre-André de Chalendar (Chairman and CEO) |
| Products | Construction materials production and retail, glass, ceramics, plastics, abrasives, packaging, gypsum plasterboards |
| Revenue | €42.025 billion (2013) |
| €2.764 billion (2013) | |
| Profit | €0.595 billion (2013) |
| Total assets | €45.726 billion (2013) |
| Total equity | €17.870 billion (2013) |
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Number of employees
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185,364 (end 2013) |
| Website | www.saint-gobain.com |
Saint-Gobain S.A. is a French multinational corporation, founded in 1665 in Paris and headquartered on the outskirts of Paris, at La Défense and in Courbevoie. Originally a mirror manufacturer, it now also produces a variety of construction and high-performance materials. The company is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50 .
Since the middle of the 17th century, luxury products such as silk textiles, lace and mirrors were in high demand. In the 1660s, mirrors had become very popular among the upper classes of society: Italian cabinets, châteaux and ornate side tables and pier-tables were decorated with this expensive and luxurious product. At the time, however, the French were not known for mirror technology; instead, the Republic of Venice was known as the world leader in glass manufacturing, controlling a technical and commercial monopoly of the glass and mirror business. French minister of finance Jean-Baptiste Colbert wanted France to become completely self-sufficient in meeting domestic demand for luxury products, thereby strengthening the national economy.
Colbert established by letters patent the public enterprise Manufacture royale de glaces de miroirs (French pronunciation: [manyfaktyʁ ʁwajal də ɡlas də miʁwaʁ], Royal Mirror-Glass Factory) in October 1665. The company was created for a period of twenty years and would be financed in part by the State. The beneficiary and first director was the French financier Nicolas du Noyer, receiver of taxes of Orléans, who was granted a monopoly of making glass and mirror-glass for a period of twenty years. The company had the informal name Compagnie du Noyer.
To compete with the Italian mirror industry, Colbert commissioned several Venetian glassworkers he had enticed to Paris to work for the company. The first unblemished mirrors were produced in 1666. Soon the mirrors created in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, under the French company, began to rival those of Venice. The French company was capable of producing mirrors that were 40 to 45 inches long (1.0 to 1.1 m), which at the time was considered impressive. Competition between France and the Venetians became so fierce that Venice considered it a crime for any glass artisan to leave and practice their trade elsewhere, especially in foreign territory. Nicolas du Noyer complained in writing that the jealous Venetians were unwilling to impart the secrets of glassmaking to the French workers, and that the Company was hard-pressed to pay its expenses. The distractions of Paris proved distracting to the workers, and supplies of firewood to stoke the furnaces were dearer in the capital than elsewhere. In 1667 the glass-making was transferred to a small glass furnace already working at Tourlaville, near Cherbourg in Normandy, and the premises in Faubourg Saint-Antoine were devoted to glass-grinding and polishing the crude product.
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Wikipedia