Veolia and Suez: a capitalist war

The conflict has been going on for six months.

The two French environmental champions, Veolia and Suez, are waging a merciless capital war.

While we are in the midst of a period of crisis, our two great champions of water and waste treatment are literally exhausted in this battle, Suez wanting at all costs to fail the takeover bid of its major competitor Veolia.

The latter already has a foothold in the market, since it owns 30% of the capital of Suez.

But he wants to take control to become an even more powerful group, which is obviously not to the liking of Suez whose perimeter would be reduced.

The Suez group would become Franco-French.

This is what he fears indeed.

If Veolia succeeds in buying Suez, it has already announced that it would sell its activities in France to avoid the abuse of a dominant position.

Suez would therefore still exist, but its activities would be limited to France.

Is it viable?

Yes.

But it is obviously less ambitious.

Today, Veolia and Suez are two multinationals.

It happens quite often that they are competitors on tenders abroad.

Their hunting ground is global because the water and waste sectors are booming: everywhere, demand is growing for high quality environmental services.

It is precisely these development prospects that motivate Veolia in this operation: with the contribution of Suez, it wants to make its group, as its CEO Antoine Frérot says, a world champion of ecological transformation.

And for that, in fact, size matters.

On the Suez side, we plead that it is better to have two French world champions than one.

Yes and that is why the positions are irreconcilable.

Now, it's time for this trench warfare to end.

While our two champions compete in France, they risk losing markets abroad.

The stakes are not low: Veolia employs 160,000 people, Suez 90,000.

This war, which has already lasted a long time, should not benefit their competitors.