Airbus and Safran Buy Out Tikehau's Stake in Aubert and Duval, Taking Full Control of France's Superalloys Supplier

The binding agreement, signed on 25 June, sells Tikehau Capital's stake in Aubert and Duval to its two existing co-shareholders. Airbus and Safran will acquire it equally, each moving from roughly a third of the company to half and the two together to full ownership. The three had bought Aubert and Duval from the mining group Eramet in a deal finalised in April 2023, holding it through a vehicle split equally between the two industrialists and Tikehau as the financial partner — an arrangement that always anticipated the fund's eventual exit.

Aubert and Duval makes complex metallic materials — specialist steels, superalloys, titanium and aluminium — for aerospace, defence, energy and healthcare, with about €960 million in revenue, ten industrial sites (eight of them in France) and nearly 4,400 employees. Neither company disclosed a price, and completion remains subject to the required regulatory approvals. Both said the firm would continue to operate independently, with no change to the organisation of its teams.

The proprietary read. Superalloys, titanium forgings and specialist steels are the chokepoint beneath every jet engine and airframe, and Aubert and Duval is one of the few European houses that can pour them at scale. Taking out the financial shareholder leaves the supplier wholly owned by the two customers who most depend on it — a sovereignty move dressed as a routine buyout, made as rearmament drives engine and structural-materials demand to levels neither prime can risk seeing rationed or sold abroad. As Signal No. 90 noted, Europe is quietly buying back the bottom of its own supply chain.