The 50's: radars in Microlambda

In 1951, Finmeccanica and the US company Raytheon created Microlambda, operating in the field of applied electronics and producing radar systems under licence for land and naval applications. The site chosen was an industrial plant in Fusaro near Naples, which had already gained a reputation under the name of Silurificio Italiano, in the field of torpedo construction.
In 1956, a new company, SINDEL, was set up with capital provided by Edison (hydroelectric and gas distribution). Several engineers and technicians from Microlambda moved to the company which was specialised in professional electronics.

The 60's: Selenia

In 1960, an international agreement led to the creation of Selenia – Associated Electronics Industries – whose shareholders were: 40% Finmeccanica, 40% Raytheon and 20% Edison. Over the years, the name Selenia would gain worldwide recognition for civil and military surveillance systems.

The 90's: the path to alliances - from Alenia to AMS

In 1990, Selenia merged with Aeritalia, an Italian leading company in the aerospace sector. The merger gave rise to Alenia, with more than 30,000 employees, dealing with aeronautics, radars, naval systems, missiles, space applications, aircraft engines, as well as systems for environmental protection.
Alenia grew rapidly both in size and potential, so much so that in the late 1990s it was split into two companies in order to focus on its core activities more effectively: Alenia Aerospazio specialising in the design and production of aircraft and space systems, and Alenia Difesa dealing with radars, missiles, naval systems, avionics, together with the company Otobreda.
Shortly afterwards, the Alenia Difesa management decided to set up an international alliance to deal more effectively with the fierce competition in the defence electronics sector and to expand into other more demanding markets.
The chosen partner was the British firm GEC-Marconi, and Alenia Marconi Systems (later AMS) came into being in 1999 with shareholding divided equally between Finmeccanica and GEC-Marconi. A few months later, Marconi was taken over by British Aerospace (BAe), a leading group in the aerospace and defence sectors. Following the merger with GEC-Marconi, British Aerospace took the new name of BAE Systems.
The British company formed part of the joint venture with Finmeccanica until 2005, when the agreements expired and Finmeccanica acquired 100% of the Italian shares of Alenia Marconi Systems, including the activities from BAE Systems in Air Traffic Management (ATM) and Air Traffic Control (ATC) in the UK (former Air Traffic Management and Airport Systems Division) and the USA (former ASI Inc.).

2005: SELEX Sistemi Integrati and the new Large Systems strategy

2005 is, indeed, the birth date of SELEX Sistemi Integrati, a company occupying 4400 employees, and reaping the results of previous years' efforts. SELEX Sistemi Integrati is then ready to define a new strategy: besides the reinforcement of its legacy business, naval and land sensors, the company is playing a leading part in the market positioning of its new mission: systems of systems integrator for Homeland Security and Defence. As part of the reorganization of the Finmeccanica defense electronics and security sectors, from July 1, 2010 the Defense, Logistics and Environment activities of Elsag Datamat were transferred to SELEX Sistemi Integrati, together with the participation into the Sistemi Software Integrati company and the activities related to the surface, ground and naval PAR - Precision Approach radar - from SELEX Galileo.