Astronics Corporation is an American aerospaceelectronics corporation founded in 1968, headquartered in East Aurora, New York. It is traded on NASDAQ as Nasdaq: ATRO. It is known for lighting and electronics integrations on military, commercial, and business aircraft and semiconductor test systems.[1][2]
Robert Keane (founder of Vistaprint and CEO of Cimpress) owns approximately 20% of Astronics' Class B stock and is a chairman of the board since 2019. Robert Keane worked at Astronics before founding Vistaprint and is also the son of former Astronics CEO (1972-2002) and chairman (1974-2019) Kevin Keane, who died in 2019[3][4][5][6]
In 2010, Lufthansa Technik AG sued the AES division of Astronics over patent infringement with AES's EmPower system. In 2015, the suit was ruled in Lufthansa's favor in a Mannheim, Germany court. After appeals, Astronics was ordered to pay Lufthansa $3.2 million plus interest, which totalled $4.5 million at the end of 2019. A secondary suit from Lufthansa is expected to lead to a $16 million payment from Astronics. Lufthansa filed suits in UK, France, and USA; the USA lawsuit was dismissed.[7]
In February 2016, the company approved a stock buyback program and purchased 1.675 million shares by 2017. Another buyback occurred in Q3 2019, leading to 1.823 million shares being repurchased. A third buyback occurred in Q4 2019 and Q1 2020, leading to 310,000 shares being repurchased for $8.5 million.[7][2] In March 2020, the company had a $500 million revolving credit line, with $333 million loaned out of it.[7]
During the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, Astronics wrote down $74 million, laid off 30% of employees, and froze wages. They also drew down an additional $150 million from their credit line.[7][8][9]
Company brands and divisions include AES, AeroSat, Armstrong, ATS, Ballard, CCC, CSC, Diagnosys, DME, Freedom, LSI, Max-Viz, Peco, and PGA Electronic.[2] Boeing accounted for 13.6% of their 2019 sales (14.3% in 2018, 16.8% in 2017), and Panasonic Avionics accounted for 13% of sales in 2019 (14.4% in 2018, 19.1% in 2017).[2]
Astronics' sales in 2019 were $772.7 million, compared to $803.2 million in 2018.[2]