The oldest arsenal in Spain,Santa Bárbara in Granada, now belongs to a Czech business, MSM Group, closing almost a year-long, sales process.

It was back in August last year that the Czech company expressed a wish to purchase this venerable company before the Comisión Nacional del Mercado de la Competencia, setting off a stately bureaucratic process.

The sales process was done in two phases: first a new company Fábrica de Municiones de Granada (FMG SL) with Santa Bárbara Sistemas acquiring 100% of the shares, then secondly Santa Bárbara Sistemas sold all of those shares to the Czech enterprise, MSM Group.

In the meantime the Coronavirus health crisis came a long and slowed an already slow process almost to a halt.

MSM Group, which is made up of 17 companies around Europe, has breathed some life back into the arthritic company, where the average age of the work force is 56. Although 200 people work in the arsenal, only about 70 are on the full-time books as the rest are temps.

(News: Vega Area, Granada, Andalucia)