BAE agrees to buy space technology firm Ball Aerospace for $5.6bn | BAE Systems
Britain’s biggest weapons manufacturer, BAE Systems, has agreed to buy the US space technology company Ball Aerospace for $5.6bn (£4.4bn), in one of the largest takeovers by a UK company this year.
The FTSE 100 defence company said the purchase of the Colorado-based business would help it to expand in technologies that were US defence priorities.
The deal comes amid a surge in spending on global military and spying technology prompted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It also follows the US setting up a separate arm of the military, space command, to try to keep up with China. Both have prompted western allies to recommit to bigger military budgets, to the delight of weapons manufacturers that have received huge orders.
Ball Aerospace’s parent company, Ball Corporation, traces its roots back to making paint cans and glass jars in the 1880s in Buffalo, New York, and it now makes beer cans