BAE Systems

Today’s company began life as British Aerospace in 1977, a nationalised (Government owned) corporation formed from the merger of British Aircraft Corporation, Hawker Siddeley Aviation, Hawker Siddeley Dynamics and Scottish Aviation. The company was privatised (sold off) in 1981. The 1980s saw a string of acquisitions, most with little obvious logic: Royal Ordinance in 1987 (munitions), Rover Group in 1988 (cars) and Arlington Securities in 1989 (financial). By 1992 the strategy of unrelated diversification was discredited and the company was on the verge of collapse. The chairman was forced to resign and the company reappraised its strategies, being forced to sell-off Rover to BMW in 1993. Throughout the 1990s the company remained reliant upon a huge weapons contract with Saudi Arabia – a contract that would later prove controversial but it also started increasingly turning its focus to Europe. This time rather than acquisition, it started forming alliances, doing deal with, among others, Dassault, Lagadere, Saab, Daimler Benz Aerospace and Siemans. The company also took part in the restructuring of Airbus and took a 20% stake.