British Aerospace plc (BAe) was a British aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was at Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire. Formed in 1977, in 1999 it purchased Marconi Electronic Systems, the defence electronics and naval shipbuilding subsidiary of the General Electric Company plc, to form BAE Systems. History Formation and privatisation The company has its origins in the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977, which called for the nationalisation and merger of the British Aircraft Corporation, Hawker Siddeley Aviation, Hawker Siddeley Dynamics and Scottish Aviation. On 29 April 1977, the new entity was formed in the United Kingdom as a statutory corporation. Under the provisions of the British Aerospace Act 1980 on 1 January the statutory corporation was transferred to a limited company, which then re-registered as a public limited company (plc), under the name "British Aerospace Public Limited Company", on 2 January 1981. BAe was privatised in two main phases, the first in February 1981, involving 51.6% shares of the company, during which the public sale was 3.5 times subscribed and at the end of the first day's trading, share prices were 14% above the original offer price. The second phase occurred in May 1985, in which 48.4% shares were sold; this sale was 5.4 times subscribed and the first day closing price was 11% above the initial offer price. Despite this privatisation, the British Government maintained a £1 golden share, which allowed it to veto foreign control of the board or company. Programmes Prior to the formation of British Aerospace, its predecessors were involved in several aircraft programmes. Scottish Aviation was working on a project for a 19-seat turboprop airliner, an upgraded version of the Handley Page Jetstream. BAe continued development and placed the Jetstream 31 into production after the first flight of the prototype in March 1980. At the same time, production of Hawker Siddeley’s HS 125 business jet, Harrier VTOL jet fighter and HS 748 turboprop airliner continued under BAe, as did the that of the Trident jet airliner for a short time. Similarly, low-rate production of the British Aircraft Corporation‘s One-Eleven jet airliner and Strikemaster two-seat military jet trainer/attack aircraft — and the iconic Concorde supersonic airliner — also continued. On 29 July 1976, less than a year prior to BAe's formation, the contract for production of the first batch of the Panavia Tornado, an advanced nuclear-capable fighter