Leading South African aerospace company Aerosud Holdings has announced that it has formed a strategic alliance with the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), which sees the IDC take a 26% shareholding in Aerosud Holdings. The IDC was not previously a shareholder of Aerosud. It had previously only financed industrial development for the company since 1997.

At the same time, Aerosud Holdings also announced that South African private-sector defence group Paramount had increased its shareholding in the aerospace company to 27%. The existing shareholders have about 29% and 6% has been allocated to the current and new management. The remaining 12% of shares will be allocated to an employee trust, defined as a BEE trust. This will enable the company to be a BEE level four by next year.

Aerosud Holdings are involved in the development of the South African designed AHRLAC (Advanced High-performance Reconnaissance Light Aircraft). The prototype recently completed its maiden test flight

Aerosud Holdings has two subsidiary companies, the wholly-owned Aerosud Aviation, and the African NDT Centre, in which the South African enterprise holds 50%. The other 50% is owned by a subsidiary of European airliner manufacturer Airbus.

Following an international tender process, in November 2013 Aerosud Holdings was awarded a contract for the manufacture of a variety of parts and assemblies for the new Airbus A400M Military Transport Aircraft. The company was successful despite the tough competition from established aerospace suppliers.

This achievement was on the back of its earlier selection for two production packages for the new Airbus A350 commercial airliner, the rapid growth of production volumes for its existing single-source contracts for parts manufacture for the Airbus A320 family, and having just been awarded the fourth contract renewal for the manufacture of parts and assemblies for the similarly successful Boeing 737 aircraft. Aerosud is now well positioned for substantial growth of its production capacity, skills profile and associated facilities. Aerosud is heading towards producing in excess of 1.4 million parts and assemblies per annum for Airbus, Boeing, and their Super Tier One Suppliers Spirit Aerosystems (Europe and USA) and Labinal, which even by International standards is considered substantial.

Inside the Aerosud factory

Aerosud is now heading towards a turnover of R1 billion per annum within the next two years, and with an order book of around R5 billion, will be increasing its employment beyond the current number of 850 engineers, technicians, aerospace artisans and skilled machine and process operators. It has already embarked on further expansion of its production facility, which includes further investment in machine equipment and facilities for its specialised aerospace manufacturing processes.

Aerosud will continue to strengthen its long term sustainability and its relevance to a growing client base by further investment in new technologies and manufacturing processes.

For further details visit www.aerosud.co.za