France’s Safran on Monday said it is in exclusive discussions to acquire New York-based Orolia, a small company in the position, navigation and timing (PNT) space for civilian, military and space operations.
Terms of the deal, which is subject to regulatory approvals and is expected to close in mid-2022, were not disclosed.
Orolia has 435 employees and is expected to generate about $113 million in sales in 2021.
Orolia, which is based in Rochester, is a portfolio company of the Paris-based investment company Eurazeo and has facilities in France, the U.S., Switzerland, Spain and Canada. The company provides solutions and products for timing and synchronization, testing and simulation, and interference detection and mitigation, and offers atomic clocks and oscillators, and emergency locator beacons.
Safran said the pending acquisition will complement its existing resilient PNT solutions and create “a world-leading position in all aspects of PNT, inertial navigation, time and Global Navigation Satellite System receivers and simulators, covering aerospace, governmental and high integrity applications.”
Safran also said it plans to invest in Orolia with its current CEO, Jean-Yves Courtois.
“The combination of Orolia and Safran will create a PNT world leader with capabilities that will be unsurpassed in depth and breadth,” Courtois said in a statement. “Our perfect complementarity in terms of technology expertise, market presence and geographic footprint will allow us to push further resilient PNT to the next level and to offer our government, aerospace and commercial customers advanced solutions they need for their critical operations. Orolia will contribute especially through its world-leading positions in timing, GNSS simulation and emergency location technologies, and through its strong presence in market.”