The Plessey Company plc was a British electronics, defence and telecommunications company. It originated in 1917, growing and diversifying into electronics. It expanded after World War II by acquisition of companies and formed overseas companies. It was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. In 1989, it was taken over by a consortium formed by GEC and Siemens which split the assets of the Plessey group. The majority of Plessey's defence assets were amalgamated into BAE Systems in 1999 when British Aerospace merged with the defence arm of GEC, Marconi Electronic Systems (MES). A small portion of the defence market, mostly embedded electronic systems and circuitcards remained with GE, formerly GE Fanuc and GE Intelligent Platforms (GE-IP) and now Abaco Systems based in Huntsville, Alabama, and in Towcester, Northamptonshire. The bulk of Plessey's telecommunications assets were acquired by Ericsson through its 2005 acquisition of Marconi Communications, a successor company of GEC.
