France's Thomson-CSF will buy Britain's Racal Electronics Plc under a $2.18 billion cash deal announced by the boards of both companies yesterday. Terms of the recommended offer accepted by the boards include 450p in cash for each Racal share, a 4.7% premium on the stock's previous close. Racal shareholders still will be eligible to receive a special dividend of 167p declared last December. Racal's stock closed down 3p to 426.50 in London trading yesterday.
The Dept. of Defense has given the U.S. Air Force a false choice between choosing readiness or investing in the future, an Air Force Association (AFA) official argued Wednesday as the organization prepared to release a major report on the subject. "It should not be a choice between one or the other...we need both," Stephen Aubin, AFA director of policy and communications, told The DAILY in a telephone interview.
ROLLS-ROYCE TURBOMECA will repair engines, modules and line replaceable units on RTM332 helicopter engines for all three military services in the U.K. under a $49.4 million contract announced yesterday. The Angle-French joint venture will also support engine sales in Europe and markets elsewhere in the world. Work will be done at the Rolls-Royce facility at Antsy, near Coventry, and at Turbomeca's Tarnos plant in France. The contract will run for five years.
Gary Payton, the former Air Force astronaut who organized NASA's program of X-vehicle testbeds for reusable space launch technology, is leaving for the private sector this spring after five years with the agency. Payton told The DAILY yesterday his departure is driven by a desire to broaden the scope of his technology work, and not by development problems in the X-33 reusable launch vehicle program.
The U.S. Dept. of Justice has sued Boeing North American, Rockwell International and United Space Alliance in a civil suit seeking damages for allegedly hiding a subcontractor's billing fraud on Space Shuttle and Space Station work. The suit in Los Angeles U.S. District Court charges Rockwell passed along millions of dollars in fraudulent claims from Onmiplan, a subcontractor it hired in 1986 to carry out cost control and management tasks. The owner of Omniplan, Ralph Montijo, pleased guilty in 1995 to some 180 felony fraud charges.
A top U.S. Navy official yesterday warned his service and industry against pursuing interoperability in theater ballistic missile defense (TBMD) system without good reasons for doing so. Rear Adm.-select John M. Kelly, Navy director of theater air warfare, said interoperability is needed to put firepower on targets, but the service must be careful not to make systems interoperable simply for the sake of interoperability. These days everyone has an idea on how to increase interoperability, but it must be done wisely, Kelly explained.
ROCKWELL COLLINS will supply high frequency radios to the Australian Defense force under a contract announced yesterday. The $10 million deal will replace existing com systems with a common use system that will be fielded by the Australian Air Force and Navy. Deliveries will begin in mid-December and continue through mid-2001.
Raytheon's Extended Range Guided Munition (ERGM) for naval applications completed two firings last month in a test series the company termed successful. The five-inch rocket-assisted projectile relies on Global Positioning System signals for guidance to distant targets ashore. In tests at the U.S. Marine Corps Yuma Proving Ground, Ariz., the munition demonstrated that its rocket motor could safely fire, and that the aerodynamically improved tail fin design was structurally capable, according to Raytheon.
Boeing will buy Hughes Electronics' space and communications business and related assets for $3.75 billion in cash, the companies reported yesterday. Hughes shareholders welcomed sale of the company's satellite-building operation by sending GMH shares up $3.69 to $110.50 on top of the previous day's strong rise, while Boeing investors remained on the sidelines.
Preparations made by the airlines, airports and aviation manufacturers for the Year 2000 computer date-logic problem are expected to provide lasting benefits for the industry, according to top industry officials. "This milestone achievement sets the stage for future global collaborative efforts to meet head on the myriad global issues that will certainly arise for international civil aviation in this new century," said Assad Kotaite, president of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Council.
Shares of DaimlerChrysler (NYSE: DCX) were up $1.56 to $78.31 at the end of trading yesterday in reaction to media reports the automaker plans to divest its noncore assets during 2000, including its aerospace division in a possible initial public offering. DaimlerChrysler's aerospace operations include the development, production and sale of helicopters and other aircraft, defense and civil system, aero engines, satellites and space infrastructure programs.
Airbus Industrie continued to set operating records last year, demonstrating the European consortium is an increasingly formidable competitor to U.S. rival Boeing. The European consortium said yesterday it secured 55% of aircraft orders for the entire industry last year versus its 50% win rate in 1998. The consortium managed to increase market share and improve margins at the same time. Airbus confirmed it received orders for 476 new aircraft valued at $30.5 billion in 1999, its second best year ever.
State-owned MiG Russian Aircraft Corp., in the midst of a broad restructuring and conversion effort put in place by a new management team, faces a major challenge to its position as one of Russia's two leading military aircraft manufacturers. A fierce behind-the-scenes struggle within the military industrial group, until recently known as MiG-MAPO, reached its peak late in November 1999 with the resignation of several top officials at the Mikoyan Design Bureau, an integral part the group.
Fed Express Corp. has received 14 new orders for its Stage 3 noise reduction kits from Pegasus Aviation, Emery worldwide, Delta, Miami Air International and Finova Capital Corp., the company reported Tuesday. This brings firm orders from Pegasus to 50 kits, continuing the company's ranking as third-largest FedEx Stage 3 aircraft kit customer after Delta and United.
SITA and AAR Corp. are forming a joint venture to build a "revolutionary" electronic marketplace to provide products and services to the air transport industry, the companies said Tuesday. The multiple application e-business will initially feature auction-based supply of spare parts, they said. When launched this summer, the on-line marketplace will provide an Internet site, which will enable industry to source, buy and sell products and services instantly, the companies said.
Because of an editing error, an article in The DAILY of Jan. 12 incorrectly referred to the UH-60 Blackhawk utility helicopter as an attack helicopter.
TRW Aeronautical Systems (Lucas Aerospace) will exhibit several new products at the Helio-Expo 2000 in Las Vegas late this month. The company has enjoyed an expanding role in the helicopter equipment market since its acquisition of French-company SAMM last year. With the purchase of SAMM, TRW Aeronautical especially bolstered its flight controls market share.
XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. (Nasdaq: XMSR) reported the company intends to sell 4 million and 2 million shares of common and convertible preferred stock, respectively. Bear Stearns&Co. and Donaldson Lufkin&Jenrette Securities will co-lead the proposed offering for the company. The two investment firms also handled XM Satellite's initial public offering (IPO) in October 1999.
National Technical Systems, Inc. has received $5.0 million recent in multiple contract awards from various defense and aerospace companies, a development the quality and compatibility testing provider sees as encouraging given the slack defense market of the past year. "These new awards are significant, not only in dollar value, but also because they appear to signify an upturn in our aerospace and defense business which has been soft over the last 10-12 months," stated NTS Engineering&Evaluation Group President Richard Short.
The fatal Saab 340-crash in which all 10 on board were killed on Monday hit Swiss regional airline Crossair in the midst of a nasty fight with its pilots union over pay and work rules. The union canceled its pay agreement with Crossair in December, with termination set for this summer. The dispute turned nasty after a group headed by two Crossair pilots told Swiss media that some foreign pilots employed by Crossair would pose a safety risk because their knowledge of the English language was not adequate.
Rumors of the upcoming sale of Hughes's satellite-building unit to Boeing sent Hughes Electronics stock up more than $4 yesterday despite official no-comments from both companies, as investors realized what a good fit the long-discussed deal would be for both companies. Hughes parent General Motors (NYSE: GM) closed the day at $76.38, up more than $3.00, and Hughes (GMH) ended at $107.00, a rise of almost $4.50 per share. Boeing (BA) shares traded relatively flat, up $0.16 a share to $43.06.
An order from Turkmenistan Airlines for a Boeing 757-200 brings Boeing's total commercial orders for 1999 to 391 aircraft. Boeing confirmed an order from Turkmenistan to purchase one additional 757-200 jet, an extension of an agreement the company signed with Turkmenistan Airlines in December 1999 for four more aircraft. Including the latest order, the Turkmenistan contract totals $67 million.
SCIENTISTS HAVE CUT the estimate of large, near-Earth asteroids in the Solar System in half, based on new data from NASA's Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking System (NEAT). According to an article to be published in the journal Nature today, the estimate of asteroids with diameters larger than 1 kilometer has been downsized from between 1,000 and 2,000 to between 500 and 1,000. The NEAT system has been tracking near-Earth asteroids and comets since 1995 with a charge-coupled device camera attached to a 1-meter U.S.
Guidance replacement work on the U.S. Air Force's Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile could be worth as much as $1.3 billion to TRW over the next eight years if all contract options are exercised, the company reported yesterday. TRW will receive $143.7 million as a first installment in its full rate production contract on the Minuteman III guidance replacement program (GRP). The program is designed to extend the service life of the missile through 2020.
