Atlas Elektronik sold

BAE Systems has sold its German sonar business Atlas Elektronik to the European aerospace group EADS and Germany’s ThyssenKrupp Technologies. They will pay about EUR145m in cash and assume Atlas’s pension liabilities of EUR72.4m. ThyssenKrupp will own 60% of Atlas with EADS holding 40%.

BAE, Europe’s largest defence company, put Atlas on sale earlier this year. The takeover comes as Europe’s naval shipbuilding industry consolidates in the face of stiff global competition, tight defence budgets and more demands for integration between ships and the systems they carry.