Marco Fuchs, CEO of the German A&D prime OHB, plans to participate in the antitrust process against the proposed merger between Airbus, Thales, and Leonardo\u2014to make a case that the merger would be bad for the European space industry.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will be vocal about our view that we think that this is limiting competition,\u201d Fuchs said in an interview with Payload yesterday. \u201cWe are concerned, and we will participate in the antitrust process against it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Building the case: OHB isn\u2019t alone in the view that the proposed pan-European merger could be bad for business. European VC investors<\/a> told Payload last month that\u2014while the merger would have little short-term impact on new space startups (who rarely compete head-to-head with A&D primes)\u2014the new entity could become a magnet for large government contracts.<\/p>\n For OHB, the situation is more complicated. The prime often competes for large contracts against Airbus, Thales, and\/or Leonardo. In some cases, however, OHB has subcontracted Thales Alenia Space (a joint venture between Thales and Leonardo) for critical components on major missions\u2014including on the LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) mission<\/a>, and on future Copernicus EO spacecraft<\/a>.<\/p>\n As Fuchs sees it, the merger could have a negative effect on OHB\u2019s supply chain.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is negative in the sense that it impacts our established value supply chains\u2014and our value creation reality that we have for European Space Agency business with Thales,\u201d Fuchs said. \u201cWe want to safeguard our supply chain. So, we want to make sure they compete. We want to have a level playing field.\u201d<\/p>\n Crushing it: The Airbus, Thales, and Leonardo merger will grind its way through regulatory and antitrust approvals, and isn\u2019t expected to be finalized until 2027, giving OHB ample time to position itself to meet the new challenger. Already OHB is making moves.\u00a0<\/p>\n In August, OHB reported<\/a> that its backlog had surpassed \u20ac3B for the first time in the company\u2019s history. In the short term, OHB has already started ramping up its production capacity\u2014both to meet its obligations, and to capitalize on Europe\u2019s increasing investment into space.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n OHB announced two acquisitions in the last week intended to bolster the company\u2019s ability to locally manufacture space components and infrastructure.<\/p>\n OHB completed a full takeover of MT Aerospace<\/a> on Oct. 29, by purchasing the final 30% of the company to become its sole shareholder. MT Aerospace is Germany\u2019s largest supplier to the Ariane 6 program, and has a contract with ArianeGroup to deliver components for 27 upcoming rockets.Two days later, OHB announced the acquisition of TechniSat\u2019s manufacturing plant<\/a> in Sch\u00f6neck, Germany, where OHB plans to expand electronic-component production for the space industry. The acquisition was an \u201copportunistic move,\u201d which allowed OHB to take over a production facility for a fraction of the cost it would have taken to build its own, according to Fuchs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marco Fuchs, CEO of the German A&D prime OHB, plans to participate in the antitrust process against the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121933,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[85,46,141,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-121932","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-il","9":"tag-israel","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121932","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121932"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121932\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121932"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121932"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121932"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}