Schneider Electric Industrial Services history

By 1838 Schneider had built the first French steam locomotive and it later expanded into building other large, complex mechanical devices.

Empain, founded in 1881 by Edouard Empain, was a pioneer in rail transit.

Two years later, they created Schneider & Cie.. 1891: Having become an armaments specialist, Schneider innovated by launching itself into the emerging electricity market.

The company installed the Paris Metro system in 1900 and later formed a successful rail-construction firm called Electrorail.

In 1963, however, another family industrial group called Empain acquired a large financial stake in Schneider.

In 1972 Empain-Schneider took over the civil- and electrical-engineering group Spie-Batignolles.

In 1980, however, the Empain family divested itself of its interest in Empain-Schneider, forcing the reorganization of the company and reducing Empain's involvement in the group from 45 percent to about 5 percent of turnover.

Schneider's primary operating subsidiaries remained Spie Batignolles, with 55 percent of total revenue; Merlin Gerin, with 31 percent; and Jeumont-Schneider Industries, with 14 percent in 1987.

The takeover battle, launched in February 1988, involved many bitter and complicated legal and labor disputes, and finally government intervention.

In 1990 Federal Power, a maker of low-voltage distribution equipment and medium-voltage switchgear, was acquired.

In 1992 Schneider gained full control of Merlin Gerin through a merger.

He did so by engineering a merger between the companies in July 1995, which also had the side benefit of garnering Schneider a large tax credit.

That same year, Schneider acquired EPE Technologies, a world leader in uninterruptible power supplies (UPS), although Schneider subsequently, in 1996, sold most of its interest in EPE in a leveraged buyout after deeming UPS outside its core businesses.

The case seemed to have made little progress even into early 1997, and Pineau-Valencienne, who stayed in charge of the company throughout the episode, and other Schneider officials continued to insist that the case was entirely groundless.

In May 1999 the Group was renamed Schneider Electric, to more clearly emphasise its expertise in the electrical field.

2010: Schneider Electric strengthens its lead in the development of the Smart Grid, with the acquisition of the distribution activities of Areva T&D.