Are we seeing a new era of strategic European joint ventures? Rémy Blain and Lucy Robson ask if strategic joint ventures could be rocket fuel to push new horizons of scientific and engineering innovation.
Lucy Robson
"Houston, we have a JV..." Could pan-European joint ventures be the way to drive breakthroughs in satellites, defence, and pharma? Welcome back to Mergerspresso. I'm Lucy Robson.
Rémy Blain
And I'm Rémy Blain Airbus, Talus and Leonardo recently agreed to combine their satellite and space systems businesses into a single entity. It's an exciting move, unifying some of Europe's key space technology capabilities and creating a lift-off platform for future innovation.
Lucy Robson
Yeah, and Remy, it's particularly interesting timing in a sector which is pivoting away from government and towards the private sector. Satellite and space innovation is admittedly very niche, but I guess you can see other parallels with increasing emphasis across Europe on defence technology and a broader need to keep pace with the rest of the world on engineering and scientific innovation?
Rémy Blain
Indeed, joint ventures are of course much more than a straightforward sell or acquisition. They are strategic partnerships which boost innovation by sharing expertise and pooling resources. Engineering and defence have long since diversified away from being all about hardware, with ever increasing emphasis on cyber resilience and AI.
Lucy Robson
And this all helps to make investment and development cycles much shorter, which makes collaboration easier and more attractive. I guess in pharma, the pandemic was a very real example of cross-border collaboration speeding up vaccine development.
Rémy Blain
Very true. We saw that timelines dropped from years to months. Of course, it won't be an instant transformation, but in the right businesses, JVs are likely to become an increasingly attractive way to keep pace with international competitors. And of course, the single market is a huge advantage if well-leveraged. Expect to see more companies considering JVs for their divisions, where there is a shared strategic interest across Europe, and particularly where there are major R &D costs.
Lucy Robson
It's really interesting. So...could strategic JVs be the rocket fuel we need for European innovation? Get in touch if you'd like to chat and catch you next time on Mergerspresso.
