British defence giant QinetiQ has reportedly kicked off a sales process for its US services arm, which runs laboratories for NASA, after launching a strategic review in May.
Stone Key Partners is overseeing the auction and the sale could prompt interest…
British defence giant QinetiQ has reportedly kicked off a sales process for its US services arm, which runs laboratories for NASA, after launching a strategic review in May.
Stone Key Partners is overseeing the auction and the sale could prompt interest for the rest of the group, reported the Sunday Times.
A sale could fetch up to £400m and private equity firms have already expressed their interest, added the report.
QinetiQ declined to comment on the speculation. A spokesman said: “We are working with a number of advisers to understand the options for maximising the value of US Services.”
Run separately from its UK business to comply with requirements for securing government work in America, the US unit has management and services contracts with NASA.
However, being too small to compete with the likes of Lockheed Martin for large government defence contracts, and being too big to qualify for SME incentives, the unit was put up for strategic review earlier this year.
Squeezed military spending and US government budget cuts have also weighed on the asset.
QinetiQ has another business that is partly based in America called Global Products, which develops technologies including bomb disposal robots and is not part of the strategic review.
It also works on space projects through separate businesses in the UK and Belgium, with the latter recently seeing the launch of the Proba-V Earth observation satellite it built for ESA.
A former research arm of the UK’s Ministry of Defence, QinetiQ was privatised in 2006 through a £1.3bn stock market flotation.
