Racal
Racal Electronics plc was a British defence electronics firm purchased by
Thomson-CSF (now
Thales Group) in
2000.
Racal was created in
1950 as Racal Ltd, the name being derived from the partners
Raymond Brown and George
Calder Cunningham. The first factory was located in Isleworth, West London. Although Racal had won a
Royal Navy contract to build and supply a variant of the American
Collins Model 51-J Radio Receiver, they were not granted a license to build these sets by Collins Inc. This meant that Racal had to design and build a radio receiver from scratch. The result was the justly famous 'RA17' - in production from 1955 to at least 1973 - designed in cooperation with Dr.
Trevor Wadley and utilising his famed
Wadley Loop circuit.
In
1979, Racal bought
Decca Radar forming Racal-Decca.
In
1983, Racal competed for one of the original licences to operate a cellular network in the UK, both it and
British Telecom were successful. Racal established the Racal Telecom (now
Vodafone) subsidiary. In
1988, 20% of Racal Telecom was floated on the
London Stock Exchange. This would lead to the situation where Racal Electronics was valued at less than its shareholding in Racal Telecom. Since a company which contained Chubb was clearly worth more than nothing,
Sir Ernest Harrison (Racal Chairman) demerged Racal Telecom in October 1991 forcing a positive valuation on the rest of Racal (colloquially known in the
City as "the rump"). Vodafone would later become the largest mobile network in the UK and the highest valued company on the
FTSE 100. Immediately following the demerger,
Williams Holdings launched a
takeover bid for Racal. The bid, valued at £740m, failed.
In
1984, Racal bought
Chubb, a security company that manufactured safes and locks. In
1992, Chubb was demerged from Racal and was subsequently taken over by Willams Holdings in 1997 for £1.3bn.
Racal re-established a telecoms division with a major government contract in 1988 and the acquisition of
British Rail Telecommunications in 1995. This division of the former nationalised industry owned telecoms infrastructure laid across the rail network. This telecoms division was sold to
Global Crossing for £1 billion.
In
1994,
Camelot Group won the franchise to operate the UK National Lottery, Racal had a 22.5% share. After one of the founder shareholders, GTECH, was bought out by Camelot this stake increased to 26.67% which Thales continues to hold.
In 1995 Racal expanded its defence businesses with the acquisiton of the Thorn Sensors Group from
Thorn EMI, renamed Racal Thorn Wells. In 1998 all of Racal defence businesses were reorganised under Racal Defence Electronics Ltd:
*Racal Radar Defence Systems
*Racal Radio
*Racal Thorn
With the 2000 takeover Racal became
Thomson-CSF Racal plc and later
Thales plc with the renaming of the larger Thomson-CSF to
Thales Group.
*BBC News (Oct. 12, 1999)
Racal sells telecoms division Accessed Jan. 20, 2006
*BBC News (Jan. 13, 2000)
Thomson-CSF seals Racal deal Accessed Jan. 20, 2006
*
Thales Group website*
Thales UK website
