Racal

Racal Electronics plc was a British electronics company that was founded in 1950. Listed on the London Stock Exchange and once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index, Racal was a diversified company, offering products including voice recorders and data recorders, point of sale terminals, laboratory instruments and military electronics, including radio and radar. At its height, Racal was the third largest British electronics firm; it operated worldwide and employed over 30,000 people. £1,000 invested in Racal in 1961 would have been worth £14.5 million in 2000.

Originally established as Racal Ltd in 1950, the company name originated from the names of the partners, Raymond Brown and George Calder Cunningham. One key early employee was Ernest Harrison; originally employed as an accountant, he became chairman of Racal in 1966 and would continue in this role thought to 2000. During Harrison's tenure, numerous major deals were completed, including the negotiation of a British Army battlefield radio contract (initially Larkspur, later part of Clansman) which allegedly secured the future of Racal, the merger of Racal and British Communications Corporation (bolstering Racal's radio business), the purchase of Decca Radar in 1980 despite competition from rival firm GEC, the acquisition of British Rail Telecommunications network (to form the basis of Racal Telecom), and its investment into National Lottery company Camelot Group.

Perhaps the firm's largest success was the creation of the Vodafone mobile phone network; Racal had purchased one of the first two UK cellular telephone network licences (the other was held by British Telecom) in 1982 and the firm remained the majority owner of Vodafone up until its 80 percent stake was sold off in 1991. A series of de-mergers and spin-outs were completed by Racal throughout the 1990s; these included the de-merging of Chubb (which was reportedly made to counter a hostile takeover bid of Racal by Williams Holdings) and the sale of Racal Telecom to Global Crossing in late 1999. In 2000, Racal was purchased by Thomson-CSF (now called Thales Group), largely completing the firm's breakup. One year later, Racal Instruments Inc. became an independent company after a leveraged buyout from Thales; in 2004, it was acquired by EADS North America Defense and Test Services Inc., which was then acquired by Astronics Corporation in 2014. The Racal brand now resides with Astronics Test Systems, a wholly owned subsidiary of Astronics Corporation.