Suez Canal Company in the context of "Gamal Abdel Nasser"

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⭐ Core Definition: Suez Canal Company

The Suez Company or Suez Canal Company, full initial name Compagnie universelle du canal maritime de Suez (Universal Company of the Maritime Canal of Suez), sometimes colloquially referred to in French as Le Suez ("The Suez"), was a company formed by Ferdinand de Lesseps in 1858 to operate the Egyptian granted concession of the Suez Canal, which the company built between 1859 and 1869. Initially, French investors held half of the Company's stock, with Egypt's ruler Sa'id Pasha holding most of the balance. In 1875, financial distress forced Sa'id's successor Isma'il Pasha to sell the country's shares to the government of the United Kingdom. The Suez Company operated the canal until Egypt's new president Gamal Abdel Nasser revoked its concession in 1956 and transferred canal operation to the state-owned Suez Canal Authority, precipitating the Suez Crisis.

Following the loss of the canal concession, the Suez Company received financial compensation from the Egyptian government, the final payment of which was made in 1962, and used this resource to reinvent itself as a major investment and holding company in France. In 1958 it renamed itself the Compagnie financière de Suez ("Suez Financial Company"), and in 1967 changed its name again to Compagnie financière de Suez et de l'Union parisienne, a change that was reversed in 1972. It was nationalized in 1982, then privatized in 1987. It acquired control of the Société Générale de Belgique in 1988, and changed name again to Compagnie de Suez in 1990. In 1997, it merged with water utility and construction conglomerate Lyonnaise des eaux [fr] to form Suez-Lyonnaise des eaux. The merged entity renamed itself as Suez in 2001 and underwent several subsequent mergers, spin-offs, and restructurings that led to the creation of the energy company Engie and the water and waste-management utility also named Suez.

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Suez Canal Company in the context of Suez Canal

The Suez Canal (/ˈs.ɛz/; Arabic: قناة السويس, Qanāt as-Suwais) is an artificial sea-level waterway in Egypt, connecting the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez and dividing Africa and Asia (and by extension, the Sinai Peninsula from the rest of Egypt). It is the border between Africa and Asia. The 193.30-kilometre-long (120.11 mi) canal is a key trade route between Europe and Asia.

In 1858, French diplomat Ferdinand de Lesseps formed the Compagnie de Suez for the express purpose of building the canal. Construction of the canal lasted from 1859 to 1869. The canal officially opened on 17 November 1869. It offers vessels a direct route between the North Atlantic and northern Indian oceans via the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, avoiding the South Atlantic and southern Indian oceans and reducing the journey distance from the Arabian Sea to London by approximately 8,900 kilometres (5,500 mi), to 10 days at 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph) or 8 days at 24 knots (44 km/h; 28 mph). The canal extends from the northern terminus of Port Said to the southern terminus of Port Tewfik at the city of Suez. In 2021, more than 20,600 vessels traversed the canal (an average of 56 per day).

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Suez Canal Company in the context of Suez Canal Authority

Suez Canal Authority (SCA) is an Egyptian state-owned authority which owns, operates and maintains the Suez Canal. It was set up by the Egyptian government to replace the Suez Canal Company in the 1950s which resulted in the Suez Crisis. After the United Nations intervened, the three invading countries (France, Israel, and the United Kingdom) were forced to withdraw.

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Suez Canal Company in the context of Engie

Engie SA (stylised in all caps as ENGIE) is a French multinational electric utility company, headquartered in La Défense, Courbevoie. Its activities cover electricity generation and distribution, natural gas, nuclear power, renewable energy, district energy, and the petroleum industry. It is involved in both upstream (engineering, sale, operation, maintenance) and downstream (waste management, dismantling) activities.

Engie supplies electricity to 27 countries in Europe and 48 countries worldwide. The company, formed on July 22, 2008, by the merger of Gaz de France and Suez, traces its origins to the Universal Suez Canal Company founded in 1858 to construct the Suez Canal. As of 2022, Engie employed 96,454 people worldwide with revenues of €93.86 billion.

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Suez Canal Company in the context of History of Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser

The history of Egypt under Gamal Abdel Nasser covers the period of Egyptian history from the Egyptian Revolution of 1952, of which Gamal Abdel Nasser was one of the two principal leaders, spanning Nasser's presidency of Egypt from 1956 to his death in 1970. Nasser's tenure as Egypt's leader heralded a new period of modernisation and socialist reform in Egypt, along with a staunch advocacy of pan-Arab nationalism (including a short-lived union with Syria), and developing world solidarity. His prestige in Egypt and throughout the Arab World soared in the wake of his nationalisation of the Suez Canal Company in 1956, and Egypt's political victory in the subsequent Suez Crisis, but was damaged badly by Israel's victory in the Six-Day War.

The era witnessed a rapid increase in living standards unparalleled in Egypt's millennia of history, and is regarded as a time when ordinary Egyptian citizens enjoyed unprecedented access to housing, education, employment, healthcare, and nourishment, as well as other forms of social welfare, while the influence of the former aristocracy waned, as did that of the Western governments that had hitherto dominated Egyptian affairs. The national economy grew significantly through agrarian reform, major modernisation projects, such as the Helwan steel works, and the Aswan High Dam, and the nationalisation of key parts of the economy, notably the Suez Canal Company. At its economic peak, Nasser's Egypt was capable of not only offering free education and healthcare to its own citizens but also to the citizens of other Arab and African countries, who were offered full scholarships and living allowances to undertake higher education in Egypt before returning to their home countries. However, the substantial economic growth that marked the early 1960s took a downturn later in the decade, particularly as Egypt's military quagmire in the North Yemen Civil War deepened, only recovering in the late 1970s. During Nasser's time in office, Egypt experienced a golden age of culture, particularly in theatre, film, poetry, television, radio, literature, fine arts, comedy, and music. Egypt under Nasser dominated the Arab World in these fields, with Egyptian musical artists such as Abdel Halim Hafez, Umm Kulthum, and Mohammed Abdel Wahab, literary figures such as Naguib Mahfouz, and Tawfiq el-Hakim, actors such as Faten Hamama, Salah Zulfikar, Soad Hosny and Rushdi Abaza, and the release of over 100 films yearly, compared to the production of just more than a dozen annually during Hosni Mubarak's presidency (1981–2011).

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