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Lagardère SCA
Type	Public (Euronext: MMB)
Founded	1996
Headquarters	Paris, France
Key people	Arnaud Lagardère (General partner and CEO), Raymond Lévy (Chairman of the board)
Industry	Conglomerate
Products	Books, magazines, radio stations, audiovisual production, sports broadcasting rights, retail outlets, advertising sales, holding in EADS
Revenue	€8.214 billion (2008)
Operating income	▲ €647 million (2008)
Profit	▲ €593 million (2008)
Employees	29,890 (2008)
Subsidiaries	Lagardère Active, Lagardère Services, Lagardère Publishing, Lagardère Sports, EADS
Website	www.lagardere.com

Lagardère SCA (Euronext: MMB) is a French conglomerate formerly known as Matra, with holdings in publishing, retail, media, and aerospace. The firm is a société en commandite par actions or limited partnership.

[edit] History

Lagardère was incorporated on 24 September 1980 as a holding company.

Matra was privatized in 1988, with Lagardère holding 6% of the stock and by 1992, 25%. In December 1992 the group was radically restructured:

Lagardère absorbed Arjil, its parent company;
Lagardère received shares in Matra (from Floirat, Daimler Benz and GEC) and the holding group of Hachette, Marlis (from Floirat, Crédit Lyonnais and Aberly);
Matra and Hachette were merged to form Matra Hachette, of which Lagardère held 37.6%;
Lagardère's legal status was changed from a corporation (société anonyme or SA) to a limited partnership with shares (société en commandite par actions or SCA).

Following a share swap in 1994 Lagardère held 93.3% of Matra Hachette’s stock. In 1996 Matra Hachette was formally merged into Lagardère.

In 1999, the defence arm, Matra Hautes Technologies, merged with Aérospatiale to form Aérospatiale-Matra. On July 10, 2000 Aérospatiale-Matra became part of EADS.

On 23 October 2002, Lagardère announced the purchase of Vivendi Universal Publishing, with the exception of Houghton Mifflin.