Thomson-CSF, the international defence and commercial electronics group, today announces the rebranding of its global operations, with a new corporate identity and a new name: THALES (pron. ta'les).

The move follows a wide-ranging strategic review, which revealed that Thomson-CSF's former corporate identity no longer adequately reflected the reality of the group today.

THALES today is a global business, with operations in nearly 30 countries and over 65,000 employees worldwide - half of them based outside France.
The group's strategy is to leverage its expertise in dual technologies - where military applications can take advantage of advances made in response to the civil market and vice-versa - to achieve balanced growth in both the commercial and military markets. THALES is positioned to become a market leader in several new commercial technologies and already serves the defence community as a prime contractor in a number of geographical markets.

2000 was a year of fundamental structural change for THALES, with the acquisition of Racal in the UK and the realignment of the group around three clearly-defined businesses corresponding to the group's main markets: aerospace, defence, and information technology Y This restructuring has been accompanied by radical changes in the group's culture and management as acquisitions have been integrated in the UK, the Netherlands, South Africa and Korea.

Denis Ranque, chairman of THALES, comments: "We have changed significantly since the days when we were known simply as a French defence company. Today, we are a global dual-technology group with substantial businesses in the aerospace, defence and IT Ymarkets. By assuming a new name and identity at this important point in our history, we are clearly signalling the scale of that change."
The group's new Internet address is www.thalesgroup.com