Five years after AE Industrial Partners began merging space technology businesses together to form Redwire Corp., the investment firm is about to again become majority owner of the Jacksonville-based company.
After taking Redwire public, AEI continues to control about 43% of the stock. An affiliate of AEI also owns Edge Autonomy, a maker of uncrewed airborne system technology.
Redwire in January agreed to buy Edge Autonomy for $925 million in cash and stock and because of the Redwire stock that AEI will receive in the deal, it will again become majority owner of Redwire, according to a proxy statement filed by Redwire April 7.
AEI will also gain control of Redwire’s board of directors, according to the proxy.
The merger is significant for Redwire because it will nearly double its revenue and expand its operations beyond space technology with Edge Autonomy’s earthbound systems.
AEI’s majority control is not likely to have an impact on operations because Redwire CEO Peter Cannito has also served as an operating partner of AEI since 2019.
Boca Raton-based AEI is an investment firm with $5.6 billion in assets under management and says it focuses on “highly specialized markets including national security, aerospace, and industrial services.”
AEI formed Redwire in 2020 and acquired seven space technology companies within a year, including Jacksonville-based Made in Space.
Not long after forming Redwire, in January 2021 it acquired a company called UAV Factory that made unmanned aerial vehicles.
In September 2021, at about the same time Redwire went public, AEI bought another unmanned aerial systems company called Jennings Aeronautics and merged it with UAV Factory.
It renamed the merged company Edge Autonomy.
According to the proxy statement, executives of Redwire became aware during a September 2024 phone conversation with representatives of AEI that Edge Autonomy was seeking a sale.
That led to Redwire beginning discussions with Edge Autonomy, ending with the merger agreement in January.
Redwire agreed to buy Edge Autonomy for $150 million in cash and stock valued at $775 million as of Jan. 20, when the deal was announced.
Roth Capital, a financial adviser for Redwire, estimates that AEI will own about 65% of Redwire shares after the merger, according to the proxy.
The proxy was filed for a special meeting of Redwire stockholders to approve the deal at a date that has not been set.
The deal must be approved by a majority of shares not held by AEI but Redwire’s second and third largest stockholders, Bain Capital and Genesis Park, have pledged to vote in favor, assuring the deal will receive more than 50% approval.
Redwire projects the combined companies will produce revenue of $535 million to $605 million this year, up from Redwire’s expected 2024 revenue of about $304 million.
Two years after launching a $200 million project to upgrade its Jacksonville shipyard, BAE Systems said it is ready for work on submarines.
The facility is at 8500 Heckscher Drive along the St. Johns River.
London-based BAE has operated the shipyard 2 miles from the Atlantic Ocean since it acquired Jacksonville-based Atlantic Marine Holding Co. in 2010.
BAE said in an April 8 news release it began fabricating deck structures for the U.S. Navy’s Columbia-class submarine program last year at the site.
The company said that between the Jacksonville shipyard and a manufacturing site in Louisville, Kentucky, it has 200,000 square feet of space dedicated to take on submarine construction.
“Our facilities have the capacity for growth and our workforce has the skillsets required to manufacture major structures for these complex giants,” Charles Lewis, director of Submarine Programs for Platforms & Services at BAE, said in the release.
Tradebe Life Sciences, headquartered in Barcelona, Spain, announced April 9 it acquired Jacksonville-based Florachem Corp., which makes concentrated fractions, extracts and natural ingredients derived from citrus.
Tradebe said the deal is part of its plan to grow and expand globally in the flavors and fragrances industry.
“The acquisition of Florachem brings key strategic synergies for the growth and internationalization of our division and marks our entry into the United States,” Tradebe CEO Oscar Creixell said in a news release.
Tradebe said Florachem, founded in 1988, employs 40 people and had “turnover” of $42 million last year, with projections to reach $66 million in 2025.
The company bought Florachem from investment firm SK Capital Partners LP, which acquired it in 2022.
Terms of the deal were not announced.
Carronade Capital filed a proxy statement April 7 nominating four directors to Cannae Holdings Inc.’s board of directors, after saying in March it would take that action if changes weren’t made to improve operations.
Cannae is an investment firm spun off from Jacksonville-based Fidelity National Financial Inc. in 2017.
“Despite the Company’s valuable collection of assets, the Company has suffered from prolonged share price underperformance, a persistent valuation discount, poor corporate governance practices and ineffective Board oversight,” Carronade said in the proxy filing.
“We believe that meaningful change is required on the Board in order to establish accountability to shareholders and unlock the Company’s trapped potential,” it said.
Cannae has not filed a proxy statement for its annual meeting, where four of 10 seats on the board will be up for reelection.
It did not immediately respond to Carronade’s filing but Cannae CEO and Fidelity Chairman Bill Foley responded to the investment firm’s March 20 announcement about a possible proxy fight by saying he is confident in the company’s strategy.
Although Carronade did not publicly announce its intentions until March, its proxy filing said the firm sent a letter to Cannae’s board of directors in December indicating its intent to nominate four directors.
Carronade officials talked by phone with Cannae officials several times over the next three months before publicly announcing its plans.
Carronade said it owns about 3.05 million shares of Cannae, which represents about 4.9% of Cannae’s outstanding shares.
After Carronade made its intentions public, Cannae announced it would receive $632 million from a pending sale of Jacksonville-based Dun & Bradstreet Holdings Inc.
Cannae is Dun & Bradstreet’s largest stockholder with 69.1 million shares.
Cannae said it plans to use $300 million in proceeds from that sale to repurchase its own shares and use about $60 million to pay dividends to shareholders.
Carronade said in its proxy it told the company it believed “the moves were directionally positive, but insufficient to address the Company’s persistent underperformance and history of poor corporate governance practices.”
Duos Technologies Group Inc. said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that Kenneth Ehrman is resigning as chairman and a director of the Jacksonville-based company.
Ehrman, chairman of the technology company since November 2020, said in an April 9 letter to the board he is leaving to focus on his individual businesses. He is founder of New Jersey-based Halo Collar, which produces wireless fences for dogs.
Duos did not name a successor as board chairman.