PINO MODOLA / GENOA
Finmeccanica is close to finalising a strategic partnership between its satellite division, Alenia Spazio, and the French Alcatel group's Alcatel Space.
Negotiations conducted this year have gone well, and the companies expect to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) in the near future, says managing director Pierfrancesco Guarguaglini. Local reports say the MoU will be signed early in 2004.
Finmeccanica has long been looking for a European partner to compensate for the relatively small size of its space division. It selected Alcatel Space because it found the company open-minded towards partnerships with foreign companies, Guarguaglini says. The other contender considered was Astrium, the satellite-building arm of EADS (Flight International, 5-11 August).
Details of the agreement have not been defined. The two companies are very different sizes: Alcatel Space recorded €1.3 billion ($1.57 billion) sales last year, while Alenia Spazio had €550 million, an imbalance which could make it difficult to agree on management responsibility.
Finmeccanica could add its majority share in satellite communication services company Telespazio, which recorded €250 million in sales in 2002, to the joint venture. This would make the split in revenues between the parent companies more even, and would enhance Alenia Spazio's strength in space services, while Alcatel would maintain its superiority in satellite manufacturing. An alternative to a single joint venture company, also under consideration, is the creation of two joint ventures: a production division headed by Alcatel Space and a services division headed by Alenia Spazio. This would follow the pattern of the Eurosystems series of defence electronics joint ventures between Finmeccanica and BAE Systems (Flight International, 15-21 July).
Source: Flight International
