DCNS aims to capture quarter of French support services market

French naval ship builder DCNS is moving further into the French support services sector, with hopes to capture 25 per cent of its domestic market over the next five to ten years as outsourcing of state support services increases.

On 30 June, four days after the announcement that DCNS and environmental solutions company Veolia have formed a joint venture - Défense Environnement Services - to provide military base management, a spokesman for the group said that DCNS "is turning its attention to services: a new market where we can put our expertise and resources to good use".

However, DCNS currently has no plans to make acquisitions in the sector, which it estimates to be worth "around EUR600 million (USD843 million]".

DCNS is in the process of leveraging naval service solutions "designed to improve naval vessel reliability and availability as well as crew efficiency" and is "now expanding into new areas like infrastructure, networks and maintenance for industrial facilities in the defence and civil sectors".

Specifically, the group is targeting the engineering services arena; new construction work; and the operation and maintenance of naval and commercial ports, the figure added.