Seco-Rail

General information

Seco-Rail is a French Entreprise of public Travaux subsidiary of the group Colas (group Bouygues), specialized in railway work .

Its turnover rises to 174 million euros (2005). It group employs 1100 worker.

History

SECO

SECO, and Construction Survey firm of Tools, was founded in 1931 to build and exploit the first French dégarnisseuse-sifter of high capacity ballast designed by Maurice LEMAIRE, engineer of the way to the Company of the Railroads of North, then Ministre for the Construction and the Housing of 1953 with 1955.

Of principal contractor of work of mechanical raking in France, company SECO evolves in years 1950 to the practice of the whole of work of installation, renewal and maintenance of railways.

With the beginning of the year 1970, the company knows some financial problems. It is then sold in 1975 with the company Desquenne and Giral, the totality of the shares of the shareholders being yielded in 1977.

Desquenne and Giral

Albert Giral, employed since 1933 of the Dehé company specialized in railway work, wishes to create his own company in order to better implement his ideas. Exempted mobilization for health reason in 1939, it joins together in 1944 its economies, borrows from its family and friends and decides to launch out. But, at that time, it is not possible to create new businesses, this temporary measure having been taken not to handicap the prisoners of war. A mutual friend, Robert MOINON, make him meet Pierre DESQUENNE, contractor of maçonnerie.
At the beginning, the limited liability company Pierre DESQUENNE, which had been created in 1936 and which employed ten workmen, will open a sector of very modest maintenance of railways; but it is the time of the rebuilding and work does not miss. The company develops rather quickly, it recruits former collaborators from Déhé. In 1946, the company Pierre DESQUENNE becomes the company Desquenne and Giral. Albert GIRAL and Pierre DESQUENNE are cogérants.

Desquenne and Giral will know a great expansion in the years 1950: it is the time of the rebuilding, and the building sites of railways multiply. Several sectors are created, in Nantes, Bordeaux, Le Havre, etc During these same years, the company is exported abroad and carried out important travaux.

In 1958, Desquenne and Giral become a public limit company with the capital of 1.500.000 Francs. Albert GIRAL is named Chairman and managing director and Pierre DESQUENNE Executive vice president. Desquenne and Giral are then the third company of ways, behind the family companies Dehé and Drouard.

The fast continuations will develop at the end of the years 1960 with an aim of increasing rates of execution of the renewals of ways. Three fast continuations will be created: the first will be entrusted to the company Drouard, the second with Dehé and the third with association Desquenne and Giral and Montcocol, which will create company PLUTO to carry out these travaux.

In 1965, Pierre DESQUENNE takes his retirement, and on September 5th, 1971 Albert GIRAL dies. His/her son, Jean-Louis GIRAL, entered the company for already several years, have taken his succession.

In 1975, taking all its competitors speed, Desquenne and Giral repurchases company SECO in prey with financial problems. In 1977, it will also take the control of another company of railway work, Verstraeten, which intervened mainly in the Paris region, the RATP* (Governed Autonomous of Parisian Transport) and in the South-Est.

SECO/DG & SECO/DGC

Following the repurchase of SECO and Verstraeten, Desquenne and Giral become a holding in 1978 and take the name of “Management Desquenne and Giral”. It gathers the whole of its railway activities under sign “SECO Desquenne and Giral”, which will very quickly become SECO/DG. SECO changes occasion of designation consequently and becomes “Company of Maintenance and Construction”. SECO/DG is then first company of railway work of France.

The group Desquenne and Giral carries out many acquisitions of companies during the years 1980 and 1990 in various sectors: building, public works, drillings, networks, automatisms, electricity, industrial data processing and even of editions. The activitées railway ones of the repurchased companies are gradually amalgamated with SECO/DG: it is thus of Pressiat and RCFC. GITAR, VFRP, EFAC (undertaken Belgian) see their entities conservées.
however

In December 1992, during a reorganization of the group Desquenne and Giral, several companies previously acquired are gathered under company “DG Construction”. SECO/DG, functionally autonomous, is connected juridically to DG Construction.

In May 1997, during a new reorganization of the group, “DG Construction” is integrated into SECO/DG which becomes SECO/DGC (SECO Desquenne and Giral Construction). This company breaks up into four departments: Railways, Civil engineering, Networks, Work souterrains.

However, the end of the year 1990 will be difficult for the group Desquenne and Giral. Except for railway work which accounts for approximately 35% of the activity, the whole of the activities is overdrawn and the investment becomes quasi null.

SECO-RAIL

With the beginning of the year 2000, Jean-Louis GIRAL, near to the retirement, seeks a transferee for his group. Taking into account the financial problems evoked above, no company is interested. At this point in time the COLAS group decides to repurchase in October 2000 the whole of the railway activities of Desquenne and Giral (Department Railways of SECO/DGC, VFRP, GITAR, EFAC, DG the U.K. Limited). Company SECO-RAIL is then created such as it exists actuellement.

Activities

The company Seco (and construction Survey firm of tools) was repurchased in October 2000 by the Colas group, taking the name of Seco-Rail then. It is specialized in work of way: renewal of ways, construction of new lines… It became, since the end of the year 2006, a Railway company having of a European license and a certificate of safety to circulate on the French network.

It began on January 14th, 2007 a regular traffic of Granulat S between the Carrières Roy with Saint-Varent (Two-Sevres) and the power station of coating of Gennevilliers (Hauts-de-Seine), for the Cola account.

See too

National company of the railroads French

External bond

Official site

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