The story
The GIAT group was founded in 1973 by combining the industrial assets of the technical direction of Army weapons of the French Ministry of Defense. The company was nationalized in 1991. On 22 September 2006 GIAT became the core of the new company Nexter.
For many years GIAT struggled to turn a profit. The company was operated at a loss. A 2001 report by the Cour des Comptes and a 2002 report by the National Assembly described the situation as critical. In April 2004 the board of directors presented the public with a financial statement showing a profit of several hundred million Euros. This was mainly due to increased export sales, and the modernization of the Leclerc Main Battle Tank (MBT) and several other armored platforms. Sales to the UAE however were accomplished with the payment of $200 million to intermediaries.
In 2006, the THL-20 gun turret was selected by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited for use on the HAL Light Combat Helicopter, incorporating the 20 mm M621 cannon.
Rebranding as Nexter (2006)
On 21 September 2006, then-CEO Luc Vigneron announced that GIAT would soon complete a corporate restructuring that had been planned since 2003. The company's legacy product lines would be grouped under a holding company that would retain the GIAT name, while those slated for future development and expansion would be separated into four subsidiaries, all branded with the name "Nexter". The reorganization took effect on 1 December.
Nexter has a joint venture CTA International with BAE Systems to develop and manufacture case telescoped weapon systems and ammunition of 40 mm calibre.
Nexter continues to produce several former GIAT small arms, cannon, and anti-armour weapons. One such weapon is the Wasp 58, a low cost, one man antiarmour/assault weapon system.
In May 2014 Nexter bought two artillery shell manufacturers: Mecar in Petit-Roeulx-les-Nivelles Belgium, and Simmel Difesa in Colleferro Italy.
Merger with KMW (2015)
In 2015, Nexter and Krauss-Maffei merged under a single structure. The new KMW+Nexter Defense Systems (KNDS) will be the European leader of terrestrial defense with more than 6,000 employees. The supervisory board appointed the new CEO of Nexter Systems, Stéphane Mayer, and the chairman of the executive board of KMW, Frank Haun, as CEOs of the holding company.
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On 24 October 2023, Nexter's Mecar subsidiary announced that it had found an investment of €15 million for a 155mm artillery shell production facility. A guarantee by the Belgian Defense Ministry of €10 million was needed to initiate construction. In May 2024 the price of the munitions was between €7,000 and €10,000. The facility would be able to produce roughly 100 shells per day, which was then roughly a third of the number of heavy artillery shells produced at KNDS overall. At the time, Mecar did not have permission to handle explosives, so the shells needed to be sent away for final assembly. In May 2024 the Belgian defense minister Ludivine Dedonder signed a contract with Nexter to buy 4,000 shells annually for the next 20 years.
In February 2024 Nexter signed an agreement with a Saudi group called Wahaj that they would together develop a guided shell for use with the 156 CAESAR artillery delivery systems that were on order by the Saudi government, which had established more stringent precision standards than normal. The state-of-the-art ordnance systems used GPS and IMU; the newly-specified "Sabir" system would add a (drone-mounted) laser pointer feature and have a range of 60km. In addition, the Saudis prize the ITAR-free status of their new shells.
Rebranding as KNDS France (2024)
As a result of the merger of Nexter Systems into KNDS, the KNDS brand replaced the Nexter brand in June 2023. In April 2024, the Nexter Systems subsidiary was officially renamed KNDS France, while Krauss-Maffei Wegmann became KNDS Deutschland.
From Wikipedia’s article on KNDS France, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5