Airbus-Safran, the joint-venture company that already owns 41 per cent of European rocket launch company Arianspace, is to acquire an additional 34 per cent of the company.

The stake being acquired is currently owned by France’s Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales (CNES), the French government agency responsible for shaping and implementing France’s space policy.

“Today we already have control of Arianespace, as the joint venture by itself has the majority of the capital,” Airbus Group chief strategist Marwan Lahoud said in Paris on January 8th during an annual press conference of the French aerospace equipment suppliers group GIFAS, and quoted by trade magazine Aviation Week.  “But we are in the process of acquiring CNES shares, and that will be completed in the coming weeks.”

Lahoud said that by the end of 2016, when this acquisition will be fully completed, Arianespace would be 75 per cent owned by Airbus-Safran.

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