CSG has invested in a 9.5% stake in MDA Space, a leading global space technology company
The investment forms part of CSG’s long-term strategy to develop space capabilities to complement its existing defence and aerospace businesses
CSG has also created a core team of senior space and defence professionals to lay the foundations for a broader team and the expansion of its activities in the sector
CSG (‘the Group’), a global industrial and defence group, today announces its entry into the space sector through the acquisition of shares resulting in a 9.5% equity position in MDA Space Ltd. (‘MDA Space’), making CSG MDA Space’s largest shareholder at this time. MDA Space is one of the largest space companies and a leading global provider of advanced space technologies and services listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange.
Defence and space are tightly interconnected. Developing capabilities in space is a natural extension of the Group’s existing activities in defence and aerospace. The global space economy is projected to triple and reach $1.8 trillion by 2035, with commitments signalling a clear, multi-year acceleration in in-space investment, including approximately $74 billion in global government space-defence spending in 2025. Against this backdrop, the Group intends to develop its presence progressively through careful capital allocation, leveraging internal expertise alongside partnerships and selective strategic investments.
CSG views this strategic investment in MDA Space as an opportunity to explore potential cooperation between the two groups over time. Such cooperation could include co-investing in manufacturing or assembly facilities in Europe, partnering on strategic acquisitions, and otherwise seeking to introduce CSG’s customer relationships to MDA Space to support MDA Space’s international growth. This investment follows previously announced smaller-scale venture capital investments, made through Tech Horizons VC fund, in SatVu in the UK and Atmos Space Cargo in Germany. The stake in MDA Space is held by a dedicated subsidiary.
This investment forms part of Group’s broader long-term strategy in the space sector. Group believes that MDA Space offers a compelling combination of technological depth, diversified activities, established industrial scale and exposure to both commercial and government markets.
CSG also announces the creation of a dedicated space team to develop its long-term activities in the sector. The team brings together senior expertise from space and technology, defence and national security, as well as from the Canadian aerospace and defence market. The team will initially comprise the newly created roles of Head of Space Strategy and Technology (which will be held by Ladislav Stahl, a former NATO space advisor) and Space Director for Corporate Development (which will be held by Filip Kocián, an expert investment and corporate development professional specialising in the global space industry). They will be joined by Cameron McKenzie, a senior Canadian aerospace and defence executive, who will take responsibility for CSG’s activities and expansion in Canada in his role as Senior Adviser.
Michal Strnad, Chairman of the Board of CSG, said:
“MDA Space is a highly respected, well led, profitable and growing space company with exceptional technological capabilities and a diversified position across satellite systems, robotics and space operations, geointelligence and defence-related applications.
“MDA Space’s capabilities and experience will be highly relevant as CSG develops its own position in the space sector in cooperation with MDA Space. This is a strategic investment that reflects CSG’s conviction in the growing importance of space and in MDA Space as a key player in the sector. We want to be a long-term strategic shareholder and see significant potential for MDA Space and CSG to grow alongside each other.We expect that CSG’s customers will be able to benefit from a much wider and more complex product offering in an era of rapidly increasing dependency of our security on space applications.”
Mike Greenley, Chief Executive Officer of MDA Space, said:
"We welcome CSG’s investment in MDA Space, and its position as a strategic investor. CSG is a leading European industrial group with a proven track record in building high-quality defence businesses. As countries around the world look to increase their sovereign defence and space investments, the expansion of MDA Space’s global investor network is a strategic tool for continued expansion of our business. With this addition of CSG to our group of shareholders, MDA Space continues to strengthen its investor and business partner base in Europe. We are looking forward to a long-term strategic partnership with CSG and to continuing to create value for all our shareholders."
Stanislav Kuba, Investment Director of CSG, said:
“We are approaching space in the same way we approach all our expansion and investment decisions: with a long-term industrial perspective and strict financial discipline. Building the team and taking a strategic investment in an established space company gives us two complementary foundations – expertise within CSG and direct exposure to one of the world’s most sophisticated space ecosystems.”
CSG creates dedicated space team
Alongside its investment in MDA Space, CSG has assembled a dedicated team to develop its activities and expertise in the space sector.
Ladislav Stahl – Head of Space Strategy and Technology
Ladislav Stahl is a defence and space-security specialist with extensive experience in space intelligence, space operations and the development of national space capabilities. He has served as Space Intelligence and Space Security Advisor within NATO Headquarters’ Intelligence Division and previously led the Czech Republic’s Satellite Centre. His expertise includes Earth observation, space-domain awareness, space security and threats, orbital operations and the development of emerging space technologies.
Filip Kocián – Space Director, Corporate Development
Filip Kocián is an investment and corporate development professional specialising in the global space industry. He has advised on M&A, financing, markets and strategy across the space value chain and previously held an investment role at Expansion Ventures, a European early-stage space, aerospace and defence investment fund. He also co-founded Golem Ventures Space.
Cameron McKenzie – Senior Advisor, Canada
Cameron McKenzie is a senior Canadian aerospace and defence executive with more than three decades of international industry experience. He previously served as Vice President of Global Sales, Business Development and Customer Support at L3Harris Technologies’ WESCAM business and held senior leadership positions at CAE and the Canadian Commercial Corporation. He will advise CSG on the Canadian market and the development of its relationships across the aerospace, defence and space ecosystem.
About MDA Space
Building the space between proven and possible, MDA Space (TSX:MDA) (NYSE:MDA) is a trusted mission partner to the global defence and space industry. A robotics, satellite systems and geointelligence pioneer with a 55-year+ story of world firsts and more than 450 missions, MDA Space is a global leader in communications satellites, Earth and space observation, and space exploration and infrastructure. The global MDA Space team of more than 4,000 space experts has the knowledge and know-how to turn an audacious customer vision into an achievable mission. For more information, visit mda.space.
Noah Note: I wake up to get a drink and I come bacl to THE CZECHS SNATCHING A CHUNK OF MDA. I swear to god, no one gives me as much stress as MDA, amd thats saying something. They can't go a month, a single month without something major happening to keep me on my feet.
AND FOR THE RECORD, TO THOSE OF YOU WHO FOLLOW ME ON X AND SAW MY CZECH TEASING YESTERDAY I PROMISE I HAD NO IDEA ABOUT THIS ONE, STRAIGHT UP. THAT WAS ME BEING FUN, NOT TEASING SOMETHING LIKE THIS.
Like, okay. I knew that CSG had plans here. I knew theybwere planning some stuff, and had been engaging folks hard, but like there are levels here. My level aint this freaking level. This was not what I was expecting to hear about, not one bit.
9.5% sits right under the 10% early-warning reporting line too. Of course right now we are lacking a lot of detaios as it comed to the acquisition and expectations that CSG has with MDA beyond basic statements on collaboration. No clue of the plans, again this is catching me by surprise here.
To recap: MDA is coming off a big run the last few months. In January, they got onto the roster for the US Missile Defense Agency’s SHIELD program,March had the $32 million Surveillance of Space 2 ground segment award, three telescope sites, and the STARS tasking system. In April, they unveiled MIDNIGHT, their bodyguard satellite for rendezvous and proximity operations, and the same month the first Prime 2.0 beamforming chips started shipping for the AURORA arrays.
June was three wins in about a week. On June 19th, MDA signed the definitive agreement to acquire 100% of Blue Canyon Technologies from RTX's Raytheon business, all-cash for ~$874 million. I covered it in full here, but the short version bears repeating because I can't stress enough the importance of it.
Blue Canyon is a Colorado spacecraft and component manufacturer with more than 85 spacecraft launched and 3,500-plus products on orbit, around 400 employees, and two facilities in the Denver aerospace hub, including the 80,000-square-foot Lafayette headquarters where they build their larger buses. The deal adds roughly $4.9 billion to MDA's opportunity pipeline and is expected to close by the end of the year.
Blue Canyon primarily develops cube and micro satellites, standardized buses, and the components that go into them: reaction wheels, gyroscopes, solar systems, and batteries. Mainly, though, they're known for XACT, essentially the autonomous steering brain of a satellite, the system whose entire job is keeping a spacecraft perfectly stable and pointed exactly where it needs to go.
For MDA, that's probably the most significant technical part of the acquisition. GNC has been a major gap in MDA's supply chain, an area where they've had to buy from outside, and they were already a Blue Canyon customer for it.
Same story for solar arrays and batteries that they also get out of this. For a company looking to fully establish themselves as an end-to-end, vertically integrated manufacturer, this fixes several of those gaps in one purchase. A few remain—cOBCs and GNSS most notably—but the internal supply chain gets significantly stronger.
It also sets up MDA to fully tackle SHIELD projects. MDA is again on the SHIELD roster already, but has lacked the present, integrated American footprint to really participate the way the Trump administration wants. Blue Canyon holds facility security clearances from the US Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency and has DoD program history. MDA gets all of that: the facilities, the workforce, the clearances.
That also gives MDA a very unique position as a Canadian space manufacturer with now a diverse catalog of available buses, US clearances, an in to American programs, and a growing supply chain. That makes them the one company able to say, and participate at scale, as a Canadian-based, Canadian-controlled NORAD prime for space.
That sets MDA up better than anyone else here, straight up. It seriously opens the conversation to push NORAD-aligned projects in a certain, limited way. If you catch my drift… I can't say if anyone is thinking about it, but it hit my brain instantly the moment I put it together. You have a cross-border, Canadian Prime that has built up significant capacity and already represents a significant part of our space industrial base, and is leading on most existing space projects ongoing.
They also had the Mitsubishi Electric selection for Japan's next defence communications satellite, and the $688 million CSA contract for the RADARSAT replenishment satellite from December hitting. All of this, mind you, happened in a week's period, if you wanna get a little timeline.
Then, MDA announced a firm offer to acquire 70% of the French CLS, or Collecte Localisation Satellites, for ~$920 million in cash, with closing expected late this year or early next, subject to French regulatory procedures. Between this and Blue Canyon, that's about $2 billion of acquisitions inside three weeks.
CLS is a French company comprised of about 1,200 people across 40 sites in 19 countries. For those who don't know them, their roots are in the Argos system, the satellite tracking network behind everything from drifting ocean buoys to animal tags to emergency beacons.
CLS does five markets, but the one to watch is maritime surveillance and maritime security. They process data from about 200,000 beacons a month, the VMS and LRIT tracking regimes that governments use to watch their fleets and enforce their waters; and by the company's own claim, they monitor 100% of global maritime traffic, 30 million vessel positions a day.
The company supports fisheries enforcement, dark vessel work, and ocean monitoring for government customers around the world, which itself is something that MDA is well accustomed to in itself through RADARSAT and soon Chorus, where the company supports Canada and her allies through programs like the Dark Vessel Detection Program.
So this work isn't new to MDA, it's actually their bread and butter, but it would be a major expansion. CLS watches the whole global traffic picture where MDA's work has been mission-by-mission and area-by-area; it has a very healthy, global customer base already established, and provides MDA with a mature, downstream analytics capacity, that processing layer that turns raw collection into finished intelligence. That is something MDA has never owned at this scale.
Probably a bit more interesting, and I do wanna get it in, CLS is actually a subsidiary of CNES, the French Space Agency, which means MDA isn't buying out a commercial operation; they're buying majority control of a French state space company. CNES is keeping the other 30% specifically, in their words, to ensure the protection of France's strategic interests.
MDA has gone on the fast track to not just trying to build a Canadian Prime, a North American Prime, but a Global Prime, who maintains an end-to-end service capacity across manufacturing, operations, Maritime Surveillance, Space-Based Surveillance with the likes of ThothX, data processing, and analytics, backed by a global network of constellations, earth-based observation capabilities, and a global customer base to back it up.
It's late, im half-awake but I had to get this out. A few things of note. How this effects the wider MDA expansion plans as it relates to Blue Canyon and CLS are also important to keep an eye on. Right now it isn't as serious if it was 10%+, which im sure everyone recognizes.
It doesn't, I believe, put risk on Excepted Investor status at this stage, though I imagine CFIUS is watching this like a hawk. This is very arguably borderline ona passive investment, burden of proof is on them of course, but how this is executed is important. It's navigating through a minefield.
I think the Blue Canyon review is still ongoing as well. I can't remember right now, it would be close. That could present some complications and delays. Unlikely to trip anything up, but it's gonna be a glaring eye on everything right now.
And like I get it. CSG is jumping on a hot MDA whom in turn is looking for a major partner to help support their expansion plans, bring together capacity, and build off CLS to build a capacity to act as a Prime in the European ecosystem. It aligns also with the Federal direction for allied investment into key Canadian industry.
The Feds are faaar from against this kinda move. Hell, on the other end, they were floating around Lightspeed too in the Investment playbook. "foreign direct investment from reliable partners." isnt just plastered around for show. The Feds expect foreign capital to support the Defence Industrial Base, and are more than eilling to roll the carpet out for it so long as it remains diatinctly Canadian.
In this case, with what we know, this is far from a ‘controlling minority’ situation. This is a broad investment with a strategic collaboration coming through it. Whether that shifts as new info comes out, or as the relationship develops, is yet to be seen.
Still, what a complete knock in the gut to wake up to.