EDO eyeing UAV market

Arlington, Virginia-based EDO has grown considerably through strategic

acquisitions — why, it acquired three companies in 2005 alone — and its

appetite is not satiated yet. The company specializes in armament carriage

and release systems, communication and countermeasures, composite structures and engineering services. Its growth has moved it up three places this year in the top 100 ranking by revenue, to number 67, after posting 2005 revenues of $648 million compared with $536 million a year earlier.

The company has cash set aside for further expansion, says CEO James Smith. Command, control, communications, and computers and the intelligence sector are areas of focus, but Smith says he does not rule out acquisitions in other areas. One of the purchases the company made last year was in the composites domain, and the purchase aimed to give the company inroads into the lucrative unmanned air vehicle market. The company acquired, Johnson City, Tennessee-based Fiber Innovation, has the ability to make “very complex shapes, very efficiently, quickly and inexpensively”, says EDO, adding the company gives it important access to the rapidly expanding UAV market, where there is increasing demand for this kind of work. “We anticipate that we will make more acquisitions in 2006,” says Smith.

-read more in this Flight report; also see EDO Web site