CONTEMPORARY MANAGEMENT ISSUE

Contemporary Management Issue

The Greek government debt crisis is one of the most recent and disastrous debt crisis in the economic history of Greece, and is also considered as a sovereign debt crisis. This crisis occurred because of a combination of a number of weaknesses of the Greek economy and the incomplete economic tax and along with the banking unification of the European Monetary Union. A fear of a sovereign debt crisis occurred among the investors that were concerned with the greater increase in the government debt levels in the history of Greece. This increasing debt level of Greece affected the other countries of Europe that widened the cost of risk insurance on credit and the bond yield spreads among the countries in the Eurozone. In April, 2010, the government debt of Greece downgraded and also increased the bond yields resulting in the unavailability of the private capital markets as a funding source for Greece (Chatze¯Argyriu, 2011). It is obvious that the Greek crisis had negative effects on the European economy and also affected the business operations and activities of a number of organizations in Europe.

I have been working for GDF Suez, which is an energy company, and it is one of the most renowned organizations and the greatest energy provider in Europe. GDF Suez was formed as a result of a merger between a French organization named Gaz de France that was created by the French government for the production, selling and distribution of gas, and Suez that was formed for the construction of the Suez Canal. It was resulted in the year 2010 that 70 percent of the international power of United Kingdom was bought by this organization. The rest of the international power was purchased by GDF Suez in the year 2012 to become the largest publicly held utility organization in the world. This merger resulted that 80 percent of the original stake of the government of France in GDF to 35 percent in the share of the newly created GDF Suez. It was also observed that the waste and water assets of the Suez canal were also used in a separate publicly traded company named Suez Environment and GDF Suez that held a 35 percent stake in the organization.

GDF Suez is an organization that is involved in the operations of six active business lines including Energy Europe and International, Infrastructure, Energy France, Energy Services and Environment and Global Gas and LNG. The operating income and revenues of each of the business lines of the organization can be viewed in the figure presented above. It can be viewed that the organization involves a good mixture of the unregulated and regulated businesses, where the international business is less regulated but the European business is mostly regulated. It is demonstrated by the operating income of GDF Suez that the Energy Europe has the highest shares in revenue with 45.85 percent, whereas the share of Energy Europe in operating income is 24.6 ...