Thales Completes Acquisition of Thomson Marconi Sonar

Abstract

France's Thales has completed its acquisition of the former Thomson Marconi Systems (TMS) joint venture with Britain's BAE SYSTEMS and renamed the unit Thales Underwater Systems (TUS), the company said yesterday.

In April, then-TMS was awarded contracts worth $285 million for the country's Sonar 2087 towed array sonar and Sonar 2193 hull- mounted minehunting sonar programs. [Thales] is already Britain's second largest defense contractor after BAE.

France's Thales has completed its acquisition of the former Thomson Marconi Systems (TMS) joint venture with Britain's BAE SYSTEMS and renamed the unit Thales Underwater Systems (TUS), the company said yesterday.

Thales in July acquired BAE's 49.9 percent stake in TMS for an undisclosed amount, making it the sole owner (Defense Daily, July 27).

TMS was originally formed in 1996 as a joint venture for the development and production of naval equipment and systems between Britain's then GEC-Marconi and France's then Thomson-CSF.

Then-British Aerospace merged with the Marconi defense business of GEC in November 1999 to form BAE in a $12.7 billion deal. Meanwhile, Thomson-CSF last year changed its name to Thales following its $2 billion acquisition of Britain's then-Racal (Defense Daily, Oct. 16).

TUS, which has operating units in France, Britain, and Australia, is currently conducting programs in a number of countries.

In April, then-TMS was awarded contracts worth $285 million for the country's Sonar 2087 towed array sonar and Sonar 2193 hull- mounted minehunting sonar programs. Thales is already Britain's second largest defense contractor after BAE.

An antenna made by TUS was recently selected by the Pentagon for the FY '01 out-of-cycle foreign comparative testing (FCT) program (Defense Daily, July 24).

TUS is also supplying and integrating the underwater warfare system portion of the upgrade of Australia's six Oliver Hazard Perry- class frigates.