[Satellite Today – 1-8-08] MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd. (MDA) has agreed to sell its space businesses to ATK for $1.3 billion dollars, MDA announced Jan. 8.
    The transaction has been approved by each company’s board and is expected to close early in the second quarter subject to shareholder approval and U.S. and Canadian regulatory approvals.
    “The operations we are acquiring are very complementary and fully align with our strategic objective to provide complete end-to-end content to our domestic and international customers,” ATK Chairman and CEO Dan Murphy said in a statement.
    ATK will create a separate business group, ATK Space Systems, which will include the operations being acquired from MDA as well as other synergistic business assets of ATK. The new group is expected to produce revenues of about $900 million in the company’s 2009 fiscal year.
    Carl Marchetto will lead the formation of ATK Space Systems as president of the group. Marchetto most recently was executive vice president of Orbital Sciences Corp.‘s Space Systems Group.
    MDA will focus exclusively on expanding its faster growing and more scalable Information Products business and use proceeds from the sale to fund acquisitions in this area, the company said.