Airbus and Safran buy French forging supplier from Tikehau

Airbus and Safran are acquiring Aubert & Duval from private equity firm Tikehau Capital, according to PE Hub. The deal moves a specialized French forging and metallurgy business out of financial-sponsor hands and into the direct control of two of Europe's largest aerospace and defense manufacturers.

Aubert & Duval produces high-performance metal components for aircraft engines, landing gear, and structural applications. The company's forgings are engineered for extreme temperature and stress environments, making it a supplier of parts that cannot easily be sourced elsewhere or swapped out on short notice. Tikehau acquired the business in 2018, and the exit to strategic buyers rather than another sponsor suggests the primes see supply-chain control as worth paying for.

The transaction fits a broader pattern in defense procurement. As lead times stretch and geopolitical risk concentrates around a handful of choke points, OEMs are moving backward into their supply base. Vertical integration used to be a sign of inefficiency. In the current cycle, it is a hedge against someone else owning the bottleneck.

Inside Defense reported separately that European defense industrials continue to prioritize domestic and allied sourcing as production ramps. Aubert & Duval is exactly the kind of asset that becomes strategic when re-arming timelines compress and no one wants to wait in line behind a competitor's order book.

For Tikehau, the exit is clean. The firm held the asset through a period of rising defense budgets and tightening supply chains, and it is selling into demand from buyers with balance sheets and political backing. For Airbus and Safran, the acquisition is a bet that owning the forge is cheaper than waiting for the forge to deliver.