Arianespace was incorporated in 1980 to
commercialize the Ariane launch
services. Arianespace is based in Evry, France,
and has a share capital of around 2.088 billion
French francs. Arianespace holds over 50% of the
launch market for geostationary transfer orbit;
which isn't really surprising considering its
only sizable competitor is NASA.
Ownership of Arianespace lies with 41
Aerospace manufacturing and engineering companies,
11 banks, and the French space agency (CNES). French
ownership accounts for 57.7% of Arianespace, the
remainder is held in eleven other European
countries.
Arianespace kicked off its highly successful
commercial launch program on May 22, 1984, when an
Ariane 1 launch carried the Spacenet 1
telecommunications satellite into orbit. Prior to
this launch, Arianespace had launched eight other
vehicles, and since then it has had over 130
commercial flights.
In 1995, Arianespace turned a profit or about
190 million French francs, the most it has made to
date (Jan 2001). Profits declined to 48 million in
1999, largely due to the expense of launching
both Ariane 4 and Ariane 5, until Ariane 5 could
be considered proven so that Ariane 4 could be
phased out.
http://www.arianespace.com/