BAE Systems Share Price (BA.)

BA. - BAE Systems Investor Summary

BAE Systems is a multinational defence, aerospace and electronic research company. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 share price index. The company can trace its history back to British Aerospace which was created in the 1970s as a result of the nationalisation and merger of British Aircraft Corporation, Scottish Aviation and Hawker Siddeley.

By the mid-1980s this company had been transformed into a plc, and the UK government had divested its shares. In this decade British Aerospace acquired Royal Ordnance and Heckler & Koch defence companies as well as car manufacturer the Rover Group. After further acquisitions and diversification (including Hutchinson Telecom, operators of the Orange mobile phone brand) the company began divesting its non-defence interests in the 1990s selling off the Rover Group, its corporate jets business and reducing its shareholding in Hutchinson Telecom. In 1999 the company merged with Marconi Electronic Systems creating BAE Systems. Marconi itself had a long and distinguished history in telecommunications and defence. This was the result of a period of consolidation throughout the industry and left BAE as one of the strongest vertically integrated defence contractors in the world. The company previously also had an interest in passenger aircraft via its stake in Airbus, with two wing production facilities in the UK, however, BAE's 20% stake in Airbus was sold in 2006. In 2007 the company had revenues of over £15 billion, and pre-tax profits of over £1.4 billion.