La performance des entreprises d'armement est-elle influencée par la participation de l'Etat?

Abstract

In 1997, the Walloon region took a crucial decision : the take over of a weapon company established in Herstal. Since then, the FN Herstal had become one of the world leading company in the “Small Arms and Light Weapons” industry. With the introduction of the European Union and the common market, rules have changed leading the state- owned businesses to act as a private investor to avoid any competition issues. In 2001 the world saw the United States attacked on its own soil. This event was the first step of an armament race that hasn’t been seen since the 80’s. After this attack, a major part of countries increased their armament arsenal to fight the terrorism or to show to their neighbors the power of their army. Today’s tensions across the globe show us that this race to armament is not over fifteen years after the New-York attacks. The first part of the thesis analyses the military expenditures by country in each region of the world and tries to give an explanation to the fluctuations observed. The second part of this thesis analyses the legislation put in place by the European Union, the Belgian government and the Walloon region concerning the sales of military weapons. The last part provides an analysis on the liquidity, profitability and financial health of four armament companies specialized in the SAWL market both private and public and try to distinguish whether the state participation in the capital of those firms influence their performance. The method of analysis includes several ratios such as the return on equity, the Earnings Before Interests and Taxes or the current ratio to name a few. The analysis shows that even if one of the state-run company analyzed is more performing than the others, it doesn’t mean that the public entities are more performing that the private ones. The good financial health of a company takes its roots in the decision taken by the management and the strategy put in place by it.