UPDATE! 14th August
Reuters reports “exclusively” – and no doubt from anonymous EU bureaucrats as their sources – that the EC is set to approve the GE/ Alstom deal. The EC decision will be announced by 11th September. The report suggests that GE was prepared to accept the divestment of PSM and of a “facility” in Switzerland. That probably consists of some or all of the gas turbine R & D operations at Baden/Birr. The precise scope of the GE concessions are not yet revealed.
The French government, is probably not too perturbed by what happens to Swiss jobs or to PSM jobs in the US. And the price to be paid by Ansaldo probably compensates for most of the reduction that Alstom has accepted in the price to be paid by GE. In fact Alstom, the French government and Bouygues are all probably quite relieved to now see their way clear to financial closure.
Alstom management will also be quite glad to get rid of the difficult task of controlling “fortress” Baden. Whether GE for part, and the Italians or the Chinese for the rest, are up to that task is another matter.
Ansaldo (with Shanghai Electric) has emerged as the unlikely saviour of the gas turbine R & D tradition at Baden/Birr in Switzerland. But whether under GE ownership or in some hive-off to Ansaldo, it is only logical that many jobs in Switzerland would shift either to France or to Italy. One estimate puts the job losses to be expected in Baden to be around 600. I would expect the number to be very much larger. As far as the European Commision is concerned they may be making the calculation that more jobs will shift to Italy with Ansaldo ownership than would have shifted to France under GE ownership.
Job losses in Switzerland, of course, will not weigh very heavy with the EC in any case, and especially not if they were to shift to France or Italy. The EC may be calculating that Ansaldo could manage and run an R & D facility at Baden. I am not very optimistic about Ansaldo’s ability to be a technology owner. Shanghai Electric is more credible for that. My personal opinion is that Ansaldo has not the management strength or the R & D traditions to be able to manage an R&D program in Switzerland. (I note that even after a wholesale influx of French personnel, Alstom had its difficulties to manage Baden). On the other hand, any jobs which shift from the long and rich R & D traditions of Baden to Genoa will effectively be R & D which comes to an end. If the focus of development of an “Ansaldo” sequential combustion engine shifts to Italy, I would go so far as to forecast that it will never happen.
If this focus shifts to Shanghai instead, it will take a very long time but the development will eventually happen. With Shanghai Electric providing the “deep pockets” for Ansaldo, I suspect that jobs shifting to Italy will only be as a stop along the way to China.
HandelsZeitung:
Alstom Switzerland: 600 jobs in the balance
General Electric wants the energy division of Alstom.This could have a major impact on the Swiss workforce. Unions say that up to ten percent of the people have to go.
……. According to reports, GE will therefore sell its gas turbine business – the heart of Alstom Switzerland. The buyer would be the publicly listed energy company Ansaldo, a subsidiary of the Italian industrial group Finmeccanica. “Ansaldo is expected to shift the business to Genoa,” says a trade unionist.
………… On 11 September, the Commission will announce a decision. “The closing of the deal in the second half of 2015 remains our goal,” said GE spokesman Bernd Eitel.
For the EC, sacrificing Swiss jobs ostensibly for the benefit of any EU country is probably positive. But what about sacrificing Swiss jobs and an R & D tradition for the benefit of Shanghai?
Disclaimer: I should note that I own a few shares in GE and in Alstom but not enough to influence even my own opinions. I own no shares in “Baden” but I have a huge respect and admiration for the R & D work done at Baden as BBC and then as ABB and even later under Alstom ownership. Baden has been less impressive as a role-model for good management practice.
The k2p blog 