Leonardo, the Italian defense group that owns 25% of European missile maker MBDA, is demanding a major internal reorganization—arguing the company needs to scale up quickly enough to turn its swelling order book into real revenue.
In an interview with La Tribune, Leonardo co-CEO Lorenzo Mariani framed the push in blunt terms: MBDA must be able to absorb demand driven by Europe’s post-2022 missile buying surge and deliver at a pace customers now expect.
The pressure lands as MBDA promotes its “Déluge” strategy, a concept built around overwhelming an adversary’s defenses through the volume and variety of missile and munition “vectors.” But behind the doctrine, Mariani is pointing to an industrial bottleneck he says can’t be solved by production-line investment alone.
Leonardo’s Lorenzo Mariani sets a $6.5 billion revenue ultimatum
Mariani told La Tribune: “Either MBDA reorganizes to quickly reach revenue of six billion euros, or it will be a failure to rapidly work through this order book.”
Six billion euros is about $6.5 billion. The message is aimed at MBDA’s three shareholders—Airbus, BAE Systems and Leonardo—with Leonardo holding a 25% stake.
Mariani’s argument is that Europe’s defense-industrial crunch is no longer mainly about demand. Across the continent, defense firms are sitting on historically full order books while production capacity struggles to keep up. For Leonardo, the fix requires an organizational overhaul that speeds internal decision-making and accelerates deliveries, not just more spending on factory throughput.
A shareholder pushing MBDA while keeping options open elsewhere
Leonardo is not acting as a passive investor in MBDA. The company is also positioning itself as a key player in the consolidation of Europe’s land-armaments sector.
Its tie-up with Germany’s Rheinmetall is already set, Mariani said, but he also signaled he remains open to restarting talks with KNDS—saying he wants, in his words, “a win-win agreement.”
Together, the two tracks—pressure on MBDA on one side and openness to KNDS on the other—reflect a flexible consolidation strategy. Leonardo appears intent on shaping upcoming restructurings without closing doors.
Europe’s rising defense budgets add urgency to missile deliveries
Missile demand in Europe has surged since 2022, and defense budgets have risen alongside it. France, for example, allocated €47 billion (about $50.8 billion) to defense in 2024, €50.5 billion (about $54.5 billion) in 2025, and €57.1 billion (about $61.7 billion) in 2026—equal to 2.1% of GDP—according to figures published by Opex360.
That budget growth is feeding orders for manufacturers such as MBDA. Mariani’s push is aimed at ensuring that flow of contracts converts into revenue quickly, by shortening internal decision cycles and speeding deliveries to customers who, he argues, can no longer wait.
