BAE Systems is looking at acquisitions to expand in the areas of intelligence and cybersecurity; readiness and sustainment of existing weapons systems; and electronic systems, Linda Hudson, president and CEO of the company’s U.S. unit, told Reuters.
“The strategy is pretty straightforward, ” she told Reuters last week. “We’ve decided where we’re going to place our bets and we are actively in an acquisition mode.”
She said the focus was on second-tier companies currently on the market, however, she could not rule out a larger multibillion-dollar acquisition, Reuters reported.
“We see acquisition strategies in this environment being more a ‘string of pearls’ approach as opposed to one huge-type move, but anything is possible, we’ve not limited ourselves by targeting a dollar value in particular, ” Hudson told Reuters.
Firms providing high-end technical defense services and cyber-warfare capabilities have become more in-demand to potential buyers given reduced budgets for tanks, planes and other hardware in the United States and Europe. According to a defense analyst quoted in the Reuters story, the current trend does not involve weapons platforms, but instead zones in on cybersecurity and C4ISR.
