Aerospace group buys satellite company

The purchase, from private equity owner Apax France, adds to a string of deals designed to help the Airbus parent firm dispose of surplus cash.

Although Vizida is based in Paris, a contract with the United States army will give Franco-German EADS an extra toe-hold in the US where efforts to expand have met mixed success.

Vizida provides communications services to 200,000 users in the maritime, aviation and defence sectors and will become part of EADS’ Astrium space business.

EADS said the deal would boost its earnings per share and provide “significant” synergies. It did not give a timeframe or amount.

Kepler analyst Christophe Menard said: “The key point is synergies. Vizada has high-value products aimed at professionals and its margins can boost EADS earnings. It also makes sense in terms of some pieces of technology that EADS might soon need,” said.

A two-year mid-Atlantic search to locate the black boxes of a crashed Air France jetliner sparked calls for satellite-based alternatives for collecting data, Mr Menard said.

However people involved in the deal said Vizada would fit mainly into the existing business at Astrium, which already provides secure communications to Britain and German military.

EADS wants to double the share of services in its revenues to 25 percent and reduce its dependence on Airbus commercial sales to 50 percent of revenues by 2020 from 66 percent now.

In June, EADS bought Canadian repair firm Vector Aerospace for some 450 million euros.