Finmeccanica has achieved a long-cherished goal in gaining control of Aermacchi by acquiring 66.6% of its parent company Aeronautica Macchi from former owner the Foresio family. The deal is valued at €160 million ($166 million).
The takeover marks the end of a long-running campaign by Finmeccanica to acquire Aermacchi under a programme to build its defence and aerospace base. Finmeccanica's ownership of Alenia Aeronautica meant the holding company already owned 27.4% of trainer specialist Aermacchi.
Last year, Finmeccanica bought Marconi Mobile and Telespazio, and is now negotiating with BAE Systems on forming a network warfare joint venture, Eurosystems. BAE and Finmeccanica signed a letter of intent last November, but the Italian government - which owns 32% of Finmeccanica - is cautious about it, and forced the postponement of a memorandum of understanding signing last month (Flight International, 17-30 December, 2002).
Finmeccanica has now acquired a stable of trainer aircraft. Aermacchi is developing the M-346 advanced trainer, based on the Yakovlev Yak-130, which the Italian company first worked on with a group of Russian organisations.
Aermacchi is also leading the consortium that includes Dassault, EADS Casa, EADS Deutschland and Saab, for the 12-country Advanced European Jet Pilot Training project as part of the Eurotraining initiative (Flight International, 10-16 December, 2002).
In addition, the company builds the piston- or turboprop-engined SF260 and offers the S211 jet-powered basic trainer, having acquired the programmes from Siai Marchetti. Aermacchi in addition owns avionics company Logic and ejection seat manufacturer Sicamb.
Source: Flight International
