Rising spending on air-defence missiles will help MBDA continue to grow, says chief executive Marwan Lahoud. The company, based in France, Italy and the UK, saw sales in 2003 increase 34% to €2.4 billion ($3 billion), and Lahoud says that they will rise by a similar percentage this year to around €3.2 billion. Air defence will become MBDA's biggest market by 2008, he predicts. "Countries in Europe, the Middle East and South-East Asia need to renew all their deployed air-defence systems and add the capability to cope with unmanned air vehicles, low-cost cruise missiles and light civilian aircraft loaded with non-conventional weapons."
As several projects move from development to production, he also expects margins to continue to rise. Although he refuses to give exact figures, he says that in 2002 margins were well below 5%, rising three points to over 5% in 2003, and will reach double figures by 2006. Earnings before interest and tax were over €105 million.
As for the long-expected merger with Germany's LFK, "2003 was a year of misunderstandings - we could not agree on the plan, on restructuring, on price - but we have made significant progress in early 2004", Lahoud says, adding: "But I would never make any commitment to a deadline. The four-way negotiations are very complex." LFK is the key to the German market, where MBDA has had little success, he adds.
Other takeovers are unlikely, he says: "There are not so many good targets around the world. There are really only three global players - Raytheon, MBDA and Lockheed Martin -Êwhich operate in all areas. The rest are niche players and we do not want to become a company with lots of niches."
Source: Flight International
