Schneider Electric SE is a French multinational company that specializes in digital automation and energy management. It addresses homes, buildings, data centers, infrastructure and industries, by combining energy technologies, real-time automation, software, and services. Schneider Electric is a

Fortune Global 500 The ''Fortune'' Global 500, also known as Global 500, is an annual ranking of the top 500 corporations worldwide as measured by revenue. The list is compiled and published annually by ''Fortune'' magazine. Methodology Until 1989, it listed onl ...

company, publicly traded on the Euronext Exchange, and is a component of the Euro Stoxx 50

stock market index In finance, a stock index, or stock market index, is an index that measures a stock market, or a subset of the stock market, that helps investors compare current stock price levels with past prices to calculate market performance. Two of th ...

. In FY2020, the company posted revenues of €25.2 billion. Schneider Electric is the

parent company A holding company is a company whose primary business is holding a controlling interest in the securities of other companies. A holding company usually does not produce goods or services itself. Its purpose is to own shares of other companies ...

Square D Square D is an American manufacturer of electrical equipment headquartered in Andover, Massachusetts. Square D is a flagship brand of Schneider Electric, which acquired Square D in 1991. The company was listed on the New York Stoc ...

, APC, and others. It is also a research company.

Head office

Schneider Electric has had its head office in

Rueil-Malmaison Rueil-Malmaison () is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine department, Île-de-France region. It is located from the centre of Paris. In 2017, it had a population of 78,152. It is one of the wealthiest suburbs of ...

, France since 2000. This headquarters previously housed Schneider subsidiary Télémécanique while the parent company occupied a site in

Boulogne-Billancourt Boulogne-Billancourt (; often colloquially called simply Boulogne, until 1924 Boulogne-sur-Seine, ) is a wealthy and prestigious commune in the Parisian area, located from its centre. It is a subprefecture of the Hauts-de-Seine department and t ...

. The company uses an international operations model wherein its key personnel and large numbers of its staff are spread across main offices in Reuil-Malmaison,

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

Noida Noida, short for New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, is a planned city located in Gautam Buddha Nagar district of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Noida is a satellite city of Delhi and is a part of the National Capital Region (NCR) o ...

, and

Boston Boston (), officially the City of Boston, is the state capital and most populous city of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, as well as the cultural and financial center of the New England region of the United States. It is the 24th- mo ...

History

1836-1963

In 1836, brothers

Adolphe ''Adolphe'' is a classic French novel by Benjamin Constant, first published in 1816. It tells the story of an alienated young man, Adolphe, who falls in love with an older woman, Ellénore, the Polish mistress of the Comte de P***. Their illicit ...

and Joseph-Eugene Schneider took over an abandoned foundry in Le Creusot, France. Two years later, they created Schneider & Cie, focusing primarily on the steel industry. Schneider & Cie rapidly grew, specializing in the production of heavy machinery and transportation equipment. In 1871, following France's defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, it developed a main activity of manufacturing weapons with the encouragement of the government in Paris. It eventually became a complex group with industrial activities in many sites in France and abroad, including in Russia before 1917 and in Czechoslovakia between 1919 and 1938.

1963-1999

In the 1960s, Schneider was absorbed by Belgium's Empain group, which, in 1969, merged it with its own corporate structures to form Empain-Schneider. In 1980–1981, the Empain family sold its controlling stake to Paribas, which was in turn nationalized in 1982. In the 1980s and 1990s, the company, by then again named Schneider, divested from steel and shipbuilding and focused mainly on electricity through strategic acquisitions. These included Télémécanique in 1988, Square D in 1991, and in 1992.

Timeline since 1999

1999: Schneider Group acquired Lexel. In May 1999, the Schneider Group was renamed Schneider Electric. The company became an

ITER ITER (initially the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, ''iter'' meaning "the way" or "the path" in Latin) is an international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject aimed at creating energy by replicating, on Ear ...

supplier. 2014: Schneider Electric advertised a cooperation with German power supplier RWE. 2016: Schneider acquired the British retail brand Tower Electric. 2017: Schneider Electric took control of AVEVA Group PLC, a provider of engineering and industrial software based in the UK. 2018: Schneider Electric acquired Larsen & Toubro's Electrical & Automation (E&A) business in a cash deal for (excluding the marine business and Servowatch Ltd. then, currently a part of L&T E&A business). 2019: Schneider launched Schneider Electric Exchange. 2020: In February 2020, Schneider made a €1.4 billion takeover bid for German company

RIB Software RIB Software SE is a Germany-based multinational company providing construction and building information modelling (BIM) software to customers in the architecture, engineering, and real estate industries. In 2020, it became a subsidiary of Fre ...

, closing the deal in July 2020. In September 2020, Schneider Electric launched a new equipment that would help electricity distribution companies in Nigeria to fix grid faults. Also, in 2020, Schneider Electric acquired ProLeiT AG, a supplier of industrial control and MES software. 2022: In September 2022, Schneider Electric hit over 6-year high and surged 12% in a weak market.

Aveva acquisition

Schneider made its first attempt to combine with Aveva in 2015. Then, in 2017, Schneider managed to combine with the British Group, Aveva. Indeed, it was agreed that Schneider would take 60% stake in an enlarged industrial software business with Aveva. In 2022, Schneider took over the remaining shares of the British company. Nevertheless, Aveva, whose activities perfectly fit those of Schneider, would still exist as an independent entity. File:SE History-19cent-IC-900x500.jpg, 1838: "La Gironde", the first French locomotive File:Schneiderlogo1950.jpg, The Schneider logo in the 1950s File:Telemecanique brochure.jpg, One of the first brochures for Telemecanique industrial control products. Telemecanique was acquired by Schneider Electric in 1988.

Acquisitions and divestments

Organizational structure and offer

Since 2019, Schneider Electric has been operating business units: Energy Management, Industrial Automation, and Services. Energy Management The Energy Management business provides products for the management of energy in medium voltage and grid automation, low voltage and building automation, secure power and cooling applications. Services The Services business includes three divisions: Global Field Services, Energy and

Sustainability Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livi ...

Services, and

Smart grid A smart grid is an electrical grid which includes a variety of operation and energy measures including: *Advanced metering infrastructure (of which smart meters are a generic name for any utility side device even if it is more capable e.g. a f ...

Services.

EcoStruxure

In 2016 Schneider Electric launched the next generation of EcoStruxure – an

IoT The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects (or groups of such objects) with sensors, processing ability, software and other technologies that connect and exchange data with other devices and systems over the Internet or other comm ...

-enabled architecture. The EcoStruxure platform uses

Microsoft Azure Microsoft Azure, often referred to as Azure ( , ), is a cloud computing platform operated by Microsoft for application management via around the world-distributed data centers. Microsoft Azure has multiple capabilities such as software as a ...

. In April 2019, the company launched Schneider Electric Exchange, an open business platform.

Research and development investment

In its Innovation Summit North America, Schneider Electric expressed its aim to assess emerging technologies, support and subsidize startups through guiding them. In FY2021, Schneider Electric announced that its research and development expenses were around 855 million euros.

References

External links

*
Schneider Electric global blog
{{Authority control CAC 40 Companies based in Île-de-France Companies in the Euro Stoxx 50 Companies listed on Euronext Paris Conglomerate companies of France Electric transformer manufacturers Electrical engineering companies of France Electrical wiring and construction supplies manufacturers Electronics companies of France French brands Locomotive manufacturers of France Manufacturers of industrial automation MES software Multinational companies headquartered in France French companies established in 1836 Manufacturing companies established in 1836