During an official visit held at the Leonardo Divisione Elettronica plant in La Spezia, Leonardo CEO Roberto Cingolani, accompanied by Secretary General of Defence Gen. Luciano Portolano, announced that the new Joint Venture between Leonardo and Rheinmetall will be formalised in September.

At the same time, Leonardo's CEO said that the hope is to arrive by the end of the year at the signing of the contract for the Italian versions of the PANTHER and LYNX (A2CS).

As far as timing is concerned, from the signing of the contract, deliveries of the first examples will take 24/36 months for both vehicles. Mr. Cingolani then recalled the failure of the negotiations with KNDS, stating that from an industrial point of view a satisfactory agreement on synergies had not been found, while with Rheinmetall there is already an agreement and the synergy is considered well established.

Finally, Leonardo's CEO stated that only 15/16 months ago they wanted to sell this plant, whereas now 'we are putting it in the centre of Europe'.