PARIS — Pan-European missile maker MBDA bought the remaining 50% of rocket-engine supplier Roxel from co-owner Safran, in a move the company expects will help it ramp up production in the face of surging demand.
MBDA acquired Safran’s stake in Roxel on Dec. 19, it said in a statement on Monday. The deal gives Europe’s largest tactical-missile maker full control over its main supplier of propulsion, including for flagship products such as the Aster air-defense interceptor, Exocet anti-ship rocket, Meteor air-to-air missile and Akeron MP antitank munition.
As Europe rushes to beef up air defenses in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, MBDA has seen orders surge to record levels, and the company is investing at least €2.4 billion (US$2.5 billion) over five years to expand production capabilities. In the United States, tight supply of rocket motors has hampered efforts by Lockheed Martin and RTX to boost missile production there.
“This transaction is to support Roxel’s operational and industrial excellence,” MBDA CEO Éric Béranger said in the statement. “It also aims to provide an even more optimal response to the ramp-up challenges posed by the context of war economy, both in development and in production.”
MBDA plans to invest over several years to boost production at Roxel, which it says would have been more complicated to implement in the joint-venture format. While the missile maker doesn’t face a shortage of rocket motors at this time, MBDA says it saw a need to vertically integrate Roxel in anticipation of an increased missile production pace.
Roxel is being integrated as a wholly-owned subsidiary, but will continue to manage its business independently and honor all existing contracts with other system suppliers, MBDA said. The rocket-engine maker’s clients also include Saab and Lockheed Martin.
The acquisition comes at a time of major growth and investment, and will accelerate Roxel’s development as well as consolidate the engine maker’s role as a national champion in France and the U.K., according to MBDA. The company declined to say what it paid for the 50% stake.
Roxel has annual sales of about €200 million and employed around 900 people in 2024. The maker of solid-propulsion systems for tactical and cruise missiles, which says it has a 60% share of the European market for its products, gets a large majority of its sales from MBDA.
“This acquisition will enable us to further develop innovation in new solid propulsion technologies,” Roxel CEO Sylvie Grison said. “Additionally, this integration operation will make it easier to optimize industrial cycles for faster ramp-up.”
France has pushed for MBDA to speed up production in what the government dubs a shift to a war economy, though opposition lawmakers have pointed out the country is not actually at war. The French and British navies have been using Aster interceptors to down Houthi drones and missiles targeting shipping in the Red Sea, while the munition is also used by the SAMP/T air-defense system protecting Kyiv.
MBDA plans to triple production of CAMM missiles between 2022 and 2026, lift output of Aster interceptors by 50% over the period, quadruple the monthly volume of Mistral short-range air-defense missiles between 2022 and 2025 and increase production of the Akeron antitank missile by 2.5 times. Roxel supplies the motors for all of those products.
Roxel also supplies the rocket booster for MBDA’s Naval Cruise Missile, comparable to Raytheon’s Tomahawk and carried by France’s multi-role frigates and nuclear attack submarines. MBDA is offering a ground-launched version of the missile, which the company says could be a short-term option for the European Long Range Strike Approach, or ELSA, a pan-European effort to equip the continent with a sovereign long-range cruise missile.
Roxel was formed in 2003 by the merger of France’s Celerg and the U.K.’s Royal Ordnance Rocket Motors. and has a production site in the U.K. and three in France. MBDA is a joint venture between Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo.
Rudy Ruitenberg is a Europe correspondent for Defense News. He started his career at Bloomberg News and has experience reporting on technology, commodity markets and politics.
