South African privately-held defence group Paramount believes that the local defence industry needs to consolidate and cooperate to compete successfully in the increasingly competitive international market. “Paramount is always open to cooperation,” affirmed group chairperson Ivor Ichikowitz on Thursday. “If we are able to present a consolidated ‘SA Inc.’ face we can compete with the big [global] players. We have the capabilities, we have the flexibility.”

He was speaking at a press briefing at which he confirmed what had long been suspected –  that Paramount was taking over troubled local aerospace and defence company Advanced Technologies & Engineering, better known as ATE. The takeover comes into effect on Monday and thereafter ATE will trade as Paramount Advanced Technologies.

“In the defence industry, in a small country like South Africa, there isn’t really room for much competition. The only customers for legitimate defence companies are governments, and governments want to know they’re getting an offer from a country,” he highlighted. “Today there are two dominant players in the [local] aerospace and defence industry – ourselves and [State-owned] Denel. In terms of scale and size we are much smaller than Denel but we are quickly approaching the same size.”

Ichikowitz pointed out that in about 90% of the areas in which his group operated, it did not compete with Denel. And where there is competition, he would like to investigate the opportunities for cooperation. “I have huge admiration for Denel,” he said. “The new leadership has got the plot!”

One of ATE’s areas of competence is unmanned air vehicles (UAVs), which are also a speciality of Denel group business Denel Dynamics. “The UAV area is one space in which ATE’s competence is huge. Unfortunately, very little R&D [research and development] money has been spent on UAVs in the recent past,” he reported. “But we don’t want to duplicate capabilities which already exist in South Africa. That doesn’t make sense. One of the things we’re going to do in the near future is to engage with Denel and see where we can cooperate in UAVs, in the future.”

All 230 people currently employed by ATE will be incorporated into Paramount and Ichikowitz is optimistic that this staff complement will be increased. He emphasised that the group had a very strong focus on mentorship programmes to attract young people into the industry.

“We have no plans at all to exit any of the areas in which ATE has competence,” he assured. “If anything, we are going to enhance these.”