MBDA

About MBDA

MBDA, a world leader in missiles and missile systems, is a multi-national group with 10,000 employees working across France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, Spain and the United States. It has three major aeronautical and defence shareholders - Airbus Group (37.5%), BAE Systems (37.5%) and Finmeccanica (25%) - and is the first truly integrated European defence company. In 2013, the Group recorded a turnover of 2.8 billion euros, produced about 3,000 missiles and added 4 billion euros of new orders to the order book which now stands at 10.8 billion euros. MBDA works with over 90 armed forces worldwide.

MBDA was created in December 2001, after the merger of the main missile producers in France, Italy and the UK. Each of these companies contributed the experience gained from fifty years of technological and operational success. The restructuring of the industry in Europe was completed with the acquisition of the German subsidiary EADS/LFK in March 2006. This further enriched MBDA’s range of technologies and products, consolidating the Group’s world-leading position in the industry.

MBDA is the only Group capable of designing and producing missiles and missile systems to meet the whole range of current and future operational requirements for the three armed forces (army, navy, air force). Overall, the Group offers a range of 45 products in service and another 15 in development.

The Group has demonstrated its ability to bring together the best skills across the whole of Europe and as a result has been chosen to lead a series of strategic multi-national programmes. These include the six-nation Meteor air superiority weapon, the Franco-British conventionally armed cruise missile, Storm Shadow/SCALP, and a family of air defence systems based on the Aster missile for France and Italy (for ground and naval based air defence) and for the UK (naval air defence for the Royal Navy’s Type 45 destroyers).

The mastery of cutting-edge technologies is not only an advantage for MBDA in successfully developing and producing new products. It is also a means of guaranteeing customers that innovations can be made to existing products during their life span in order to meet constantly changing specifications arising from increasingly complex engagement scenarios. It is precisely this combination which makes MBDA the defence sector partner of choice in many countries around the world.