Aerospace and defense industry expects continued strong economic growth, survey by investment banker reveals

Executives in the U.S. aerospace, defense, and government services industry expect moderate to strong economic growth and predict mergers and acquisitions activity will increase or remain the same as 2018 -- despite the Democrat takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives.

That's a key finding of the annal mergers and acquisitions survey of investment banker KippsDeSanto & Co. in Tysons, Va. This survey shows that deal makers are optimistic about overall economic growth and mergers and acquisitions activity for the coming year, company officials say.

More than 80 percent of survey respondents say that federal midterm election results will have no influence on mergers and acquisitions; those who say the midterms will affect their aerospace and defense mergers and acquisitions strategies are about equally split on whether they will be more or less aggressive.

Defense spending continues to be the most important factor influencing overall mergers and acquisitions deal activity and target valuations in the U.S., the survey says. Adding critical mass with new customers (83 percent) and adding new offerings and technologies (79 percent) continue to be the top priorities. Adding scale continues to be a third priority."Our 2019 survey results suggest continued strong mergers and acquisitions activity in the aerospace, defense, and government services sectors," says Managing Director Kevin DeSanto.

In the Defense sector, the top four priority mergers and acquisitions interest areas are defense electronics; C4ISR; unmanned systems; and software.

In the Aerospace sector, the top priority area for mergers and acquisitions activity are proprietary engineered components and subsystems; machining, forming, and additive manufacturing; and supply chain management.

Overall, 222 experts who are interested in the aerospace and defense sectors participated in the survey -- of those 60 percent are executive-level corporate buyers and the remainder come from private equity groups.