Eurosystems

Eurosystems was to be a group of three joint venture companies pooling the avionics, C4ISR and communications businesses of BAE Systems and Finmeccanica. The proposal was announced in July 2003. The difficulties of integrating the companies in this way lead to a re-evaluation of the proposal, BAE's 2004 Annual Report states that "recognising the complexity of the earlier proposed Eurosystems transaction with Finmeccanica we have moved to a simpler model."

This revised agreement ("the Eurosystems Transaction") was signed on January 27, 2005. BAE and Finmeccanica announced the intention to dissolve their partnership in the AMS joint venture with AMS' UK and Italian operations to be taken over by the respective partners.

On May 3, 2005, the Eurosystems Transaction was finalised with:
*the majority of BAE Systems Avionics and the whole of the avionics portion of Finmeccanica being brought together to form the new SELEX Sensors and Airborne Systems joint venture held by shares of 25% and 75% respectively, with the option for Finmeccanica to later purchase the remaining 25%.
*the UK operations of AMS (minus air traffic control and communication systems) being brought together with the C4ISR division of BAE Systems (minus communication systems) to form the new Integrated System Technologies division of BAE Systems (BAE Systems Insyte).
*the Italian operations of AMS being brought together with several other AMS companies to form SELEX Sistemi Integrati.
*the communications systems portions of AMS and BAE Systems being sold to Selenia Communications, a division of Finmeccanica. Selenia subsequently renamed SELEX Communications.

References

*BBC News (2003) [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3043328.stm BAE ties up £2.6bn Italian deal] Retrieved Jan. 17, 2006