Airbus Defence & Space (DS) described the future of the electronics business that it is selling, in a briefing at the ILA Berlin airshow yesterday. A deal to offload Airbus DS Electronics and Border Security (EBS) to American buyout specialist KKR was announced last March. The business employs 4,000 people, mostly in Germany, and has a turnover of €1 billion ($1.1 billion).

EBS managing director Thomas Mueller insisted that the business would grow, rather than decline, under the new ownership. The company will be a “new sensor house” that offers “exceptionally powerful products” in the fields of protection, surveillance and situational awareness, he said. EBS claims to be the world leader in airborne missile-protection systems, and is a major supplier of ground-based radars and IFF systems, airborne radar components, and imaging sensors.

The business was offered for sale in September 2014, when Airbus DS decided to concentrate on core air and space platforms. But the sale process was slowed by problems with border security system contracts that had been signed with Qatar, Romania, and especially Saudi Arabia. An EBS spokesman told AIN that Airbus would retain responsibility for those system contracts, although the border security sensors themselves would form part of the sale. The deal is still subject to anti-trust approvals, and is not expected to close until the first quarter of next year. Airbus is retaining 25.1 percent of the business “for a limited time to ensure a smooth transition,” the spokesman added. 

When the sale is completed, the business will be renamed “Hensoldt,” after the nineteenth-century German pioneer of optics. His name is already used to brand the company’s optronics products. These have mostly naval applications. In the air domain, EBS is best known for its Missile Launch Detection System (MILDS) that protects many aircraft and helicopters, including Eurofighters, F-16s, NH-90s and Tigers. It also provides the key transmit/receive (T/R) modules for the Captor e-scan (AESA) radar that is being developed for the Eurofighter. Similar T/R modules are fitted in far greater numbers by EBS to the complete radars that it builds for airport surveillance and warships.