AERODYNE BUYS 60PC STAKE IN DANISH FIRM
60pc stake in Danish firm to help local drone specialist expand in Europe
AERODYNE Group, Malaysia’s leading drone specialist, has acquired a 60 per cent stake in AtSite, a Danish forerunner in wind turbine blade inspections.
The acquisition would help Aerodyne secure a stronger footing in the rapidly growing wind energy market, said founder and chief executive officer (CEO) Kamarul A. Muhamed.
“This is how we expand globally. In some countries we set up our own operations. But in most countries, we work with local partners... that is a strategy that allows us to grow this fast,” he said at the signing of the share purchase agreement, here, on Friday.
Kamarul signed the agreement with AtSite CEO Mads Obling Rasmussen, witnessed by Malaysian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, Datuk Ahmad Rasidi Hazizi.
Aerodyne, which started with three people about three years ago, now has offices in Malaysia, Australia, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, the United Kingdom and Denmark.
AtSite technicians, over the last year, had completed more than 1,000 blade inspections on offshore and onshore wind turbines throughout Europe.
Aerodyne’s services are useful for monitoring and inspection of wind turbines as they offer costsavings to wind energy operators.
The Aerodyne-AtSite collaboration will bring expertise from Malaysia and hire people in Europe to run its operations.
“The technology is from Malaysia and the solution is on the clouds, managed by our team. So, we use local drone pilots. Our people are there right now training the Europeans,” said Kamarul of his team at the company’s office in Billund, Denmark.
“I think we’ve found a niche in using drones to provide enterprise solutions, and it is the right formula. It has enabled us to experience tremendous growth in the past three years. Now we have about 200 people in 10 countries,” he said.
Aerodyne has just been rated the seventh largest drone service provider in the world.
“This is a huge vote of confidence in us — a little known Malaysian company,” he added.
Kamarul said Aerodyne’s main focus currently was infrastructure assets. “Infrastructure assets are the biggest market in terms of drone applications.”
Another market that was ripe for optimisation using drone technology was agriculture, he said, adding that Aeroydne was eyeing some partners in at least five countries.
Most of Aerodyne’s manpower were recruited from universities in Malaysia. “We are collaborating with some universities, such as University of Technology Malaysia and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, especially with the engineering faculties, in our R&D (research and development) work,” he said.
One of them, 22-year-old Thaqif Kamarul who had studied aerospace at Sunway University, has benefited from an internship at Aerodyne. He is now director and certified UAS pilot based in Billund.