Israel’s FIMI private equity fund has signed a deal to invest $40m to own a 53.6% controlling share in Israel Aerospace Industries’ (IAI) ImageSat International (ISI) unit.

Under the deal, ISI will also buy the new ‘EROS C’ observation satellite from IAI and will pay IAI $35m on the transaction closing date to cover part of the latter’s outstanding shareholder’s loan.

Subject to approval by Israeli Ministry of Defence and the country’s Antitrust Authority, the deal expects to allocate preferred stock to FIMI under a distribution agreement between IAI and FIMI.

“IAI continually reviews opportunities for civilian applications of military technologies through collaboration with synergetic organisations.”

IAI president and CEO Joseph Weiss said: “FIMI’s investment in ISI reflects IAI’s strategy to create collaborations with business and financial entities, spin-off technologies to the civilian sector, and prioritise investments for innovation and technological entrepreneurship.

“Under the deal, IAI remains a material shareholder of ISI and is expected to benefit also from the incremental value expected to surface as a result of the investment.

“IAI continually reviews opportunities for civilian applications of military technologies through collaboration with synergetic organisations.”

IAI’s new EROS C high-resolution observation satellite has been developed based on the company’s OPTSAT 3000 platform.

The low weight satellite can be deployed in various services such as collection of accurate intelligence at minimum time, as well as above politically and military-challenging regions.

It can also use advanced analytics tools to collect data.