Thales, as the UK's second largest defence company, enjoys a rich legacy of innovative excellence which has been incorporated through the absorbed heritage of many of the UK's leading defence companies.

Thales in the UK now draws together in one company such famous businesses as Racal, Thomson CSF, Shorts Missile Systems, Thorn EMI and Pilkington Optronics. Thales employs 12,000 people at 70 locations around the UK. Together we reliably provide the systems at the heart of the UK's military capability as well as delivering solutions from flight simulation and secure transactions to integrated communications.

The group now provides a unique blend of capabilities that provide world-leading defence electronics solutions across a broad front, with air, sea and land applications, as well as in the all-important area of network enabled capability. Long-term customer partnering is now a major component in the growing success story of Thales in the world's most competitive defence market.

Thales responds to the changing needs of defence electronics markets, positioning itself as a prime contractor and systems-and-services provider to design and develop systems and services for land, air and naval forces.

Thales has the necessary programme management, systems engineering and integration skills to win major contracts as a Prime Contractor and to be a partner of choice.

Representing around 55% of Thales' UK business, Thales Defence plays a major role in the defence and aerospace landscape worldwide. As a well established Prime Contractor and the UK's second largest supplier of defence electronics systems, the Company will deliver excellent value for money to its customers around the world and particularly in the UK home market.

Thales Defence has seven business areas in the UK, all closely linked to the corresponding Thales world-wide business groups:

• Air Defence: missile system design, manufacture, integration and checkout. air command & control and aircraft mission support systems.

• Airborne Systems: operating in the fields of Major Systems, Electronic Warfare and Radar systems, Missile Electronics and Customer Support and Services.

• Avionics: helicopter avionics systems integration. communications and surveillance systems.

• Communications: integrated naval and Airborne communication systems, EW systems, satcom ground terminals, IFF, remote ground sensors, tactical communications.

• Naval Systems: naval sonar systems, helicopter sonar systems, in harbour and ship defence.

• Training and Simulation: simulation systems, training services, synthetic environments.