Indra recognizes that the war in the Middle East is "positive" for its accounts

MadridIndra, the Spanish technology and defense company in which the State holds 28% of the share capital, looks optimistically to the future. Like any company that engages, among other things, in the military industry, the war in the Middle East can provide a boost to its business, as Indra's CEO, José Vicente de los Mozos, acknowledged this Thursday, coinciding with the presentation of the first-quarter results of the year. "[The war in the Middle East] can only have a positive impact on results," De los Mozos said when analysts asked him about the impact of the armed conflict. The executive linked it, above all, to demands for anti-aircraft defense products – systems and weapons that allow detecting, intercepting, and even neutralizing aerial attacks.

In fact, the surge in defense spending due to the rearmament of Europe and the EU member states, including Spain, explains the results obtained between January and March. On the one hand, Indra has doubled the company's orders in one year. In the first quarter, orders reached 20,334 million euros, more than double the 8,003 million recorded in the same period last year, according to the company. The challenge, as De los Mozos acknowledged, is now to fulfill the deliveries of these orders. On the other hand, Indra has shattered the results it obtained in the first quarter of 2025. Between January and March of this 2026, Indra has earned 76 million euros, a 28% increase.

The profits announced this Thursday are the last of the era of Ángel Escribano, who resigned as Indra's chairman this April, after a tug-of-war with the Spanish government over Indra's potential acquisition of his family company, Escribano Mechanical & Engineering (EM&E). Since this April, the new chairman is the Catalan Ángel Simón, former CEO of CriteriaCaixa, while José Vicente de los Mozos remains as CEO.

Regarding the operation with EM&E, De los Mozos said that the acquisition did not go through because the owners, the Escribano brothers (Javier and Ángel Escribano), ended up discarding the purchase. The CEO limited himself to stating that if the conditions arise again in the future, "it will be studied." The Spanish government, as the main shareholder, acknowledged that it saw a conflict of interest.

Indra has begun to register in its results the acquisitions it closed last year, among which are those of TESS Defence. For some time now, the company, but also the sector in general, have been moving towards consolidation to have companies with more muscle. The company's debt has soared from 129 million euros to 855 million euros by the end of March, and revenues grew by 15% in all business areas, although space and defense stand out, and they expect them to reach 1,000 million for the whole year.

Cellnex also opens up to defense

In this context, the defense business is capturing the interest of other companies from outside the sector. For example, the automotive industry or even telecommunications. This Thursday, the Catalan company Cellnex has positioned interventions in "defense" and "resilience" as some of its future bets. In fact, the company is studying how to contribute its network of more than 110,000 antennas in Europe to carry out "drone sightings" and "territorial security." "We are not a defense company; when we talk about this, we need partners and we are negotiating. There are not many European partners; in Spain there is a very large one, which is Indra," remarked the firm's CEO, Marco Patuano, at a meeting with journalists in Madrid.