Dubai Airshow: Thales in negotiations to acquire RUAG’s Simulation & Training business

Thales’s Training & Simulation business (Thales T&S) designs and delivers training capabilities for armed forces, civil and government helicopter operators worldwide. Thales T&S also acts as an industrial partner for the co-development of large-scale systems of systems for defence programmes. With 1,000 employees, the business has industrial sites in France, the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia as well as joint ventures and training sites in the USA, Middle East and Europe.

RUAG International’s Simulation & Training business (RUAG S&T), develops sophisticated training technologies for Land Forces. It has a strong track record in training services and benefits from a solid market reputation, long-term contracts and decades of investment in products and technologies. RUAG S&T is engaged in significant contracts including with ARMASUISSE and other key customers. It employs more than 500 people in four countries and is expected to generate sales of 100 million Swiss francs in 2021 (86 million euros).

RUAG S&T’s footprint is highly complementary to Thales T&S’s, with operations in Switzerland, France, Germany and the UAE. Together RUAG International and Thales aim to build long-term success through the complementarity of Thales's synthetic training background with RUAG International's live training background. The combination of these two activities will accelerate the deployment of the next generation of hybrid solutions to encompass the three key dimensions of live, virtual and constructive training. The new entity will also boost Thales’ capacity to accompany the digitisation of land forces’ training.

The closing of the transaction is expected in 2022 upon completion of regulatory clearances process.

“We are delighted to welcome the RUAG Simulation & Training staff. Together with Thales teams they will bring further expertise in the training and simulation field for land forces.

The training and simulation market is growing and increasingly digital. Greater use of simulation from concept definition to operations increases effectiveness and helps live training to address cost and environmental challenges. With this project, Thales strengthens the digitisation and European footprint of its Training & Simulation activity to support its customers’ ambitions in an ever more complex world.” Yannick Assouad, executive vice President Avionics, Thales.

"We are delighted to have found a leading industry partner in this field in Thales. With its experience and global presence, it brings with it the very best prerequisites to continue and expand the business activities in the Simulation & Training area and leverage the existing skills of our highly specialised training experts." André Wall, CEO RUAG International.