Industry | Water, waste management, energy |
---|---|
Fate | Merger with Gaz de France |
Successor |
GDF Suez Suez Environnement |
Founded | 1997 |
Defunct | 22 July 2008 |
Headquarters | 8th arrondissement, Paris, France |
Key people
|
Gérard Mestrallet, Chairman & CEO |
Products | Water treatment, electricity, natural gas, waste management |
Website | Suez Energy Resources |
Suez S.A. was a leading French-based multinational corporation headquartered in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, with operations primarily in water, electricity and natural gas supply, and waste management. Suez was result of a 1997 merger between the Compagnie de Suez and , a leading French water company. In the early 2000s Suez also owned some media and telecommunications assets, but has since divested these. According to the Masons Water Yearbook 2004/5, Suez served 117.4 million people around the world. The company conducted a merger of equals with fellow utility company Gaz de France on 22 July 2008 to form GDF Suez. The water and waste assets of Suez were spun off into a separate publicly traded company, Suez Environnement.
Suez was (and remains, through GDF Suez) one of the oldest continuously existing multinational corporations in the world, with one line of corporate history dating back to the 1822 founding of the Algemeene Nederlandsche Maatschappij ter begunstiging van de volksvlijt (literally: General Dutch Company for the favouring of industry) by King William I of the Netherlands (see Société Générale de Belgique). Its form prior to the GDF merger was the result of nearly two centuries of reorganisation and corporate mergers. Its most recent name comes from the involvement of one of its several founding entities – the Compagnie universelle du canal maritime de Suez – in building the Suez Canal in the mid-19th century.