Helsinki Congress of the International Economic History Association, 21-25 August 2006: Session 93 Equipment goods and mass brands American business spreading modernity into France? Strategies
c. The consolidation of the engineering and automobile industries in the 1960s-1970s
Yüklə 1,17 Mb.
|
- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- E. A chronology which went in step with the restructuring of the markets
|
c. The consolidation of the engineering and automobile industries in the 1960s-1970s With the triumphant return of the automobile, American investments in the classical engineering industry in France rose apace. Though Chrysler, and later, Ford led the pack, the original equipment manufacturers (the Timken and Gm factories in Alsace) and the tire companies also played a major part. The best example is Bendix’s subsidiary Dba (Ducellier-Bendix-Lockheed-Air Equipement) 210 which, after the purchase of Ducellier, turned into a major force in the automobile equipment market. In 1974 it had seven factories (Angers, Beauvais, Drancy, Ivry, Le Bourget, Montrond, Moulins) with two more belonging to Air Equipement (Asnières, Blois), a turnover of 1.8 billion francs and a workforce of almost 9,000 (as compared to 2,700 in 1953). It was then the first French automobile and aeronautic company. The American group Bendix became a partner when Dba was created in 1959 and controlled half the capital211 from 1967. Meanwhile, the American tire manufacturers were also busy trying to cut into Michelin’s stranglehold on the French market by riding the automobile revolution (Firestone at Béthune, Us Rubber Uniroyal at Compiègne, Goodyear212 at Amiens) 213 and incorporating, in the footsteps of Michelin, the radial tire technology214.
Despite the French counter-offensive, the North Americans retained their dominant position in the agricultural equipment market. In 1967, Massey-Ferguson was at the top with a 22 per cent share, ahead of the public company Renault (20 per cent) and far ahead of John Deere. Freuhauf and Pullman, the two American giants of truck trailers grew in step with the rapid development in road transport during the years 1960-1970. The former was present in France from the 1940s, Pullman on the other hand, bought a factory in Lorraine in 1969215, its first production plant in Europe. While Caterpillar (as we have seen) promoted its brand name and its range of machinery in France and climbed to the top spot in the 1960s and 1970s, its American competitors also drew from their technological superiority – before the advent of the Japanese in the 1980s – and established distribution and service networks to gnaw into the market share held by local and European brands (Richier, etc.). Allis-Chalmers216 came in as a plant equipment company, before forming an alliance with Fiat in 1972 and creating Fiat-Allis in 1974. Having given Richier its patents for the Michigan brand of plant equipment, Clark Equipment217 contented itself with its range of goods handling equipment (forklift trucks). Whittaker bought over Bennes Marrel218 in 1970. Other branches too lured American investors who were on the lookout for symbiotic relationships which would lead to economies of scale for furthering research and development. A few “niches” were explored at the turn of the 1960s which were later explored more fully. Thus, Harris Intertype came in 1970 with its press equipment219. In 1966, Dresser Industries220 associated itself with Vallourec to form Dresser-Dujardin for the manufacture of Clark compressors in a new factory at Havre. It later took over the entire control of the subsidiary in 1971. At that time, four of the thirteen top engineering companies in France were American.
In close proximity to the metallurgical industry, the industrial gas sector in France saw the entry of Air Products, the third or fourth largest producer in the world. In 1969, it acquired a common subsidiary with Royal Dutch Shell, the Société savoisienne de produits cryogéniques de Marseille 221, then renamed Prodair, which controlled a few regional markets and remained a pygmy with only 7 per cent of the French market, compared to the two-thirds held by Air Liquide. But the objective here was again, to just get some footholds, especially in the field of metallurgy at a time when it was growing exponentially due to the emerging innovative technologies. In 1971, Air Products installed a liquid oxygen factory close to the steel works of Outreau, in the North.
d. The success of the American system in the electromechanical industries We have already seen that happen for a long time now in the manufacture of electrical equipment222: “Ge and Westinghouse contented themselves in Europe with the cultivation of their licenses.”223 In the same vein, Babcock-Fives entered the nuclear power plant industry by obtaining a license from Babcock & Wilcox us in 1971. In 1972, Ge sold its large steam turbine patents to the German company Man and the French Alsthom-Rateau which then went on to form a European turbine technology group in order to develop these patents. The American domination was thus both quantitative – thanks to the size of the installations and the resulting economies of scale224 – and qualitative, due to the fact that the French companies were greatly dependent on American patents. Even in the civilian nuclear sector, Cge had to obtain an American license for getting the contracts for the Kaiserausgt (franco-swiss) and Bugey II power plants (which it did via its subsidiary Sogerca). At the same time, the American dominance in electromechanics also involved direct investments. In the beginning of the 1960s, the Itt group amassed for itself a half-dozen factories via its “historical” subsidiaries, especially the Cgct (at Massy and at Saint-Omer), Lmt (at Montrouge, Argenteuil, Laval, Lannion, Nantes-Orvault), and Ltt (telephone and telegraph lines) (at Conflans-Sainte-Honorine). It also entered the lighting industry in 1966 by buying out Claude-Paz-Visseaux225, one of the leaders in France.
Regarding the turnovers posted in 1981, Ibm France occupied the third spot among the French electrical corporations, Cii-Honeywell-Bull came in at fifth and Rank Xerox, who had just joined the leaders, at thirteenth place.
E. A chronology which went in step with the restructuring of the markets It is not yet possible for us to give an exact and exhaustive report of all American investments in France. But, the chronology is quite clear: during the 1950s, and at the beginning of the 1960s, American corporations were on the lookout for a French market where they could make full use of their technological superiority, where they could get some kind of “income” by grabbing large chunks of the market in those areas where they could make the most of their technological know-how (in all things regarding engineering, for example). Moreover, with the unification of the west European economy, American firms used France as their entry point for the rest of Europe. This much is clearly evident from the large number of American installations which took place in France during the 1960s, even though it was not as popular a target as were first, the United Kingdom and later, Germany.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||