PARIS—France's state-controlled Areva SA detailed plans to raise as much as €8 billion ($9 billion) from shareholders and asset sales in a wide-ranging restructuring of the beleaguered nuclear-engineering group after five consecutive years of losses.

Chief Executive Philippe Knoche said on Wednesday that the company would be split into three, with peripheral businesses put on the block.

Areva will create a new company, temporary named New Co, that will handle nuclear fuel for power plants. As previously announced, Areva's reactor-manufacturing unit will be taken over by French state-controlled power utility Electricite de France SA.

Areva itself will remain as a holding company and will directly handle the project to build a much delayed nuclear reactor in Finland that has accumulated multibillion-euro losses over the years.

"New Co will be an attractive company that will raise interest from new investors," Mr. Knoche said in a conference call, insisting the growth of the nuclear industry and the closure of old power plants will increase the demand for both nuclear fuel and for nuclear waste handling.

The dismantling of Areva is the last step of a multiyear plan driven by the government to rescue the country's nuclear sector that was once a source of national pride for France.

In recent years, Areva has lost ground to competitors from Russia, South Korea and the U.S. while demand for new nuclear reactors has plummeted following the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan in 2011

The government, which owns around 85% in Areva, will inject €5 billion in the different parts of the company. Areva will seek to raise €2.9 billion from the sale of units that make nuclear-submarine engines, wind turbines and nuclear reactors for research, after the sale of a majority stake in its commercial nuclear-reactor making unit to EDF.

Areva has lost money for the past five years, dogged by the tough market conditions that made it more difficult to recover from a number of poor investment decisions over the past decade and big cost overruns on projects in France and Finland.

Company officials had said last year, Areva needed €7 billion to get back on its feet. The company has booked at €2 billion loss since then.

Mr. Knoche said he expect the whole process to be over by the end of 2017, provided the European Commission, the European Union's executive branch, approves further state support for the company.

Write to Inti Landauro at inti.landauro@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

June 15, 2016 04:25 ET (08:25 GMT)