France - Renault Trucks Defense becomes Arquus.

On May 24, 2018, Renault Trucks Defense (RTD) will celebrate its new name: Arquus, which means "bow" in Latin. This name will cover all the activities of the manufacturer of armored vehicles. The historical supplier of the French army has eight production sites in the country.

The RTD PLFS  (Poids Lourd - Forces Spéciales) will equip the French special forces (Picture source: Renault Trucks Defense, which will change name on 24 May 2018 to become "Arquus")

Late November 2017, as Anne Bauer reports in the French newspaper Les Echos, after a sales process that lasted nearly a year, the Swedish group Volvo, a shareholder of RTD, had renounced the sale of its subsidiary, judging insufficient the offers presented by the French-German holding KNDS (alliance Nexter-Krauss Maffei) and by the Belgian group CMI.

RTD President, Emmanuel Levacher, has chosen a new name and announced a new strategy: focus on the company's know-how, mainly armored light and medium size, development of maintenance services, diversification towards integration systems and international search for partnerships.

By choosing to become “Arquus”, the group erases all references to its Volvo shareholder and its historic brands – Panhard, ACMAT or Renault Trucks – to set out to conquer markets. Nevertheless, the company will be mainly mobilized on the program of modernization of the French army, the Scorpion program (which is also expected to finally win the Belgian army’s interest this summer, 4,700 vehicles being at stake). Its scale has enabled the land defense company to receive record orders in 2017. According to Emmanuel Levacher, this volume reached, at the end of 2017, 1.9 billion euros (the equivalent of 5 years of turnover), including 600 million euros of firm orders.

The former RTD is responsible for a good third of the production of the next Griffon and Jaguar Scorpion armored vehicles, as well as the delivery of special forces vehicles and light armored vehicles.

The group missed the last big tender for medium armored vehicles (VBMR) Scorpion program, a contract awarded to Nexter and Texelis. On the other hand, it won a major contract for the maintenance of French military equipment.

The group has finally recently made a contract with Kuwait for the delivery of several hundred vehicles, mainly for VAB Mark 3 (6X6 chassis).