Press Release
Annual General Meeting of Shareholders Board of Directors
Evry, April 13, 2007
The Annual General Meeting of Arianespace Shareholders on Friday, April 13 in Evry, approved the company's financial statements for 2006 and named a new Board of Directors which named Jean-Yves Le Gall, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of Arianespace.
A record-breaking year
The shareholders of Arianespace approved the financial statements for 2006, showing sales of 983 million euros. Arianespace posted a profit for the fourth year in a row (6.3 million euros), despite a euro/dollar exchange rate which is still very unfavorable to the company's business.
These results reflect both the growth in business volume, and the company's technical and commercial successes. Arianespace logged record-breaking performance in 2006. With five Ariane 5 ECA launches from the Guiana Space Center and two Soyuz launches from the Baikonur cosmodrome, Arianespace and subsidiary Starsem orbited twelve satellites and one technology payload. At the same time, Arianespace signed twelve new launch Service & Solutions contracts, thus ensuring a constant backlog of about forty satellites to be launched, equal to more than three years of workload for all suppliers.
A new management
Arianespace shareholders also named a new Board of Directors. Outgoing chairman Jean-Marie Luton announced his intention of taking retirement. The Board of Directors issued a unanimous statement honoring him for his career and achievements at the head of Arianespace, which he joined in 1997 after seven years as Director-General of the European Space Agency.
The Board of Directors then named Jean-Yves Le Gall, previously Chief Executive Officer, as Chairman & Chief Executive Officer. The members of the Board and, particularly the representative of the European Space Agency, expressed their satisfaction with Arianespace's current situation and their confidence in the new Chairman & CEO to lead Arianespace in meeting the new challenges facing the company over the next five years, while maintaining continuity with past actions.
