L-3 Communications has been embarked on a course of acquiring small businesses and building up critical mass in niche military and civil communications, avionics and simulation markets since being spun off by Lockheed Martin in 1997.
New York-based L-3 was established around a series of former Loral businesses and has since grown into a publicly traded company with 13,000 employees and $1 billion in sales. Recent acquisitions include Link Simulation from Raytheon and the Traffic Alert and Collision Avoidance System business divested by Honeywell in the wake of its merger with AlliedSignal. The challenge now faced by L-3 founder Frank Lanza is to package the company's products and services and team with strategic partners to compete against larger corporations, who are increasingly able to bundle products.
Source: Flight International