Technology company QinetiQ Group (LON: QQ.) is acquiring Air Affairs for £31m, which is based in Australia one of QinetiQ’s core markets.
New South Wales-based Air Affairs is a defence services provider that specialises in air threat representation, unmanned air targets and mission rehearsal. The Australian Defence Force and government firefighting operations are clients.
Air Affairs has its own fleet of aircraft and manufacturing facilities. In the year to June 2022, revenues were A$43m and EBITDA A$5m.
Space sale
QinetiQ is focusing on its core markets, so it is selling QinetiQ Space NV to help finance the latest acquisition. Redwire Corporation is paying £28m for the Belgium-based commercial space business. QinetiQ is still involved in the defence and security parts of the space market.
In the year to March 2022, the space business generated revenues of €49m and EBITDA of €5m.
The QinetiQ share price dipped 5.6p to 324.4p. A second quarter trading update will be published on 12 October.