The story
The firm began as Compagnie Française Thomson-Houston (CFTH), established in 1893. In 1968, Thomson-Brandt (a renamed CFTH) merged its electronics arm with that of Compagnie générale de la télégraphie sans fil (CSF) to form Thomson-CSF. Following a series of reorganisations and different directions, including its nationalisation in 1982, privatisation in the late 1990s, and reorganisation around three business areas: defence, aerospace and information technology in 2000, the company changed its name to Thales Group in December of that year.
In June 2001, Thales formed ThalesRaytheonSystems, an equal-ownership joint venture with Raytheon combining their radar and communication systems divisions. It was restructured in 2016 to sell exclusively to NATO agencies and member states.
In 2002, Thales set up the joint venture company Armaris with the French shipbuilder DCN to offer a total "bottom up" shipbuilding capability. Also in 2002, Thales Broadcast Multimedia, a former subsidiary of Thales, provided China with standard short-wave radio-broadcasting equipment designed for general public radio broadcasting. Though the contract was not for this purpose, it later appeared that China used these ALLISS antennas for jamming foreign radio broadcasts to China.
In 2003, Thales UK's design won the competition for the Royal Navy Future Carrier (CVF), and the company now participates in an alliance company with BAE Systems and the United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence.
Acquisitions and divestments
In October 2006, after receiving approval from the Australian Government, Thales acquired Australian Defence Industries, a manufacturer of military equipment such as smokeless gunpowder and the Bushmaster Protected Mobility Vehicle. During 2006, Thales Navigation, a division that produced satellite navigation units, was sold to private equity group Shah Capital Partners for $170 million and renamed Magellan.
In April 2006, Thales announced it would acquire Alcatel's space business (67 percent of Alcatel Alenia Space and 33 percent of Telespazio) and Alcatel's Rail Signalling Solutions division, in a deal which raised Alcatel's ownership of Thales to 21.66 percent. The French government would also decrease its ownership in Thales to 27.1 percent from 31.3 percent as part of the acquisition. The deal would also include the Systems Integration activities (those not dedicated to telecoms operators, and covering mainly the transport and energy sectors). In January 2007, the €1.7 billion deal ($2.24 billion) was approved.
In July 2008, Thales acquired British hardware security module vendor nCipher. In December 2008, Alcatel agreed to sell a 20.8 percent stake in Thales Group to the French aircraft manufacturer Dassault Aviation in exchange for €1.57 billion ($2.27 billion).
In 2012, the German IT supplier SYSGO was taken over by Thales Group. It provides operating systems and services for embedded systems with high safety and security-related requirements, typically using Linux. During 2014, Alcatel-Lucent initiated talks to sell its cybersecurity unit to Thales; the deal was signed in October of that year. In 2016, Thales acquired the data security company Vormetric in exchange for $400 million.
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In April 2017, it acquired the data analysis firm Guavus. Later that year, it bid €4.76 billion to purchase the digital security company Gemalto. During late 2018, Thales decided to divest nCipher as a condition for its acquisition of Gemalto. in June 2019 it divested nCipher to Entrust. In 2023, Thales acquired the cybersecurity company Imperva from Thoma Bravo for $3.6 billion. The acquisition was completed in December 2023. In early July 2026, Thales announced an agreement with the company Exail (which specializes in marine drones), with a view to a 100% buyout.
From Wikipedia’s article on Thales Group, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.6