Paramount Group acquires ATE

6th June 2013 - 17:49 GMT | by The Shephard News Team

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Paramount Group has agreed to acquire ATE South Africa as part of a rescue package, it has been announced.

ATE will now be incorporated into the Paramount Group, trading as Paramount Advanced Technologies, ensuring that vital aerospace expertise and world-class competency remains in South Africa, Paramount said in a 6 June statement.

The company said ATE has been through a ‘tumultuous time’ over the past few years and was placed under business rescue just under two years ago.

‘Paramount Group’s acquisition will ensure the continuation of this strategic business, and in so doing, add significant new and sophisticated aeronautical capabilities into its existing product offering and expand the group’s ability to deliver to its many government customers around the world,’ the company statement said.

Ivor Ichikowitz, Executive Chairman, Paramount Group, said the alternative to Paramount rescuing ATE would have been for the company to go into liquidation or for a foreign company to acquire the business.

‘This would have meant the loss of a highly specialised strategic capability to South Africa and the continent forever. The Paramount Group is firmly committed to growing Africa’s high-tech competence and this transaction further provides us the opportunity to do so,’ Ichikowitz said.

‘With South Africa becoming a fully-fledged member of BRICS it is imperative that we enter a new phase of industrialisation. The development of home-grown technology, skills and manufacturing capabilities are crucial if we are to capitalise on both the world’s appetite to do business in our region and the huge potential for intra-African and intra-BRICS trade.’