Research of ‘open-source intelligence’, from trade magazines and regional news articles, has pieced together a disturbing picture of corporate investment in weapons manufacture.
One Australian-owned, private equity capital company is now the owner of five of the Australian companies which make F-35 fighter jet parts, and it is funded by a multi-million dollar federal government loan granted just last November.
CPE Capital (CPEC) is a large Australian private capital manager, undertaking buyouts, partnerships and investments and is based in Sydney. It says it has managed $4.5 billion in funds since its creation in 1987.
Its subsidiary, Australian Sovereign Defence and Advanced Manufacturing or ASDAM, proudly claims to be Australia’s largest supplier to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program, operating from 20 locations across Australia and the US.
Australian company contracts to manufacture parts and engines for the F-35 fighter jets “surpassed” $5 billion in April 2025 and around 75 Australian companies are getting a slice of that pie.
CPEC bought two of those parts makers, Marand Precision in June 2019, and Levett Engineering in November 2019.
Levett had already been servicing Lockheed Martin F-35s and their Pratt & Whitney jet engines. Marand Precision builds the vertical tails for the F-35.
In September 2022, CPEC’s ASDAM added two more parts manufacturers to is portfolio, Rosebank Engineering (formerly RUAG) and TAE Aerospace.
Rosebank Engineering is the manufacturer of the vertical tails and uplock actuators, which are both for the landing gear and the bomb bay doors of the F-35. As well, it does F-35 wheel and brake repairs.
TAE Aerospace makes the engine components, electro-hyrdostatic actuation system components, aperture electronics modules chassis, electronic warfare and avionic racks and components, and communication, navigation and identification system components and software for the F-35.
It is the sole Asia-Pacific provider of maintenance, repair, overhaul and upgrade (MRO&U) for the Pratt and Whitney jet engines used on the F-35.
After CPEC’s two 2022 purchases, the Financial Review estimated the value in revenue of the now four parts-makers to be around $400 million.
CPE Capital bought a fifth parts-making company in May 2025, Quickstep Holdings. It is the maker of vertical tails and carbon fibre centre fuselage composites for the F-35.
CPE Capital/ASDAM, through its five companies, now operates manufacturing facilities at 15 sites across Australia, all making parts for or servicing engines of the F-35.
Money for Some
In November 2025, the Albanese government loaned ASDAM $150 million, from an ‘industry fund’ which it set up in September 2023.
The loan was said to allow ASDAM to “refinance its debt” and “for future growth”.
The industry fund, called the National Reconstruction Fund Corporation (NRFC), has $15 billion allocated to it, and is administrated by the Minister for Industry and Science and the Minister for Finance.
The current Minister of Industry is NSW Senator Tim Ayres, a former state Secretary of the NSW branch of the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU), now a voting member for the Labor Party’s National Executive, and a factional ally of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
When I emailed Senator Ayres’ office with specific questions about CPE Capital obtaining a loan from the NRFC, his Media Deputy Chief of Staff gave generic and anodyne non-answers which can only be described as contemptuous.
On the NRF Corp board is the current National President of the AMWU, Glenn Thompson.
Daniel Walton, former National Secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU), is another board member of the NRFC. Walton was appointed to the inaugural NRFC board in August 2023.
Thompson was later appointed to the board, on 16 October 2023, by Finance Minister Katy Gallagher and then-Industry Minister Ed Husic, who has since become a vocal critic of the government’s pro-Israel policy.
According to The Guardian, Thompson was appointed “despite not being shortlisted for the role or subjected to a formal ‘due diligence’ check from private recruiters”. The paper asked Thompson, the AMWU and Minister Husic for comment, and got no response.
Former Minister Husic’s electoral office refused to reply to email questions from this publication in May this year, about the ASDAM, NRFC, Thompson and Palestine. Another email in August to Husic’s Parliamentary Office also received no reply.
Out of The Shadows
The five CPE Capital-owned F-35 parts-makers had the appearance of being small, separate entities when listed in a Defence Department graphic of Australian parts production for the F-35. In October the graphic was reported to have been disappeared from the Defence Department website.
CPEC was started by Bill Ferris, a former chair of Austrade and a member of Australia’s political elite.
Ferris has an Order of Australia for philanthropy. While his partner and co-founder, Joseph Skryznski, is on the Australian Committee of Human Rights Watch.
CPE Capital, and their subsidiary ASDAM, were each emailed questions about how these human rights credentials sit with their weapons company investments, but neither replied.
Only CPEC has a phone contact number listed and reception were unwilling to allow me to speak to its media unit. They only acknowledged that CPEC had indeed seen the email of questions.
In July and October 2025, Declassified Australia exposed the ‘smoke-and-mirrors’ approach the Albanese government uses to deny its F-35 links with Israel, a policy which continues through 2026.
The exposé shattered the lies by Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, and other ministers, that Australian-made parts are “non-lethal” for Israel ‘s F-35I bombers.
In April 2026, Michael West Media exposed $78 million in grants by the Federal Government to Australian arms makers since 2011, which include Rosebank and Quickstep.
This present article reveals further that CPE Capital had acquired Rosebank in 2022 and Quickstep in 2025. Therefore, any grants after those dates that those two companies received ultimately go to CPE Capital.
The NRFC industry fund’s media section replied to some questions when I asked them which industries they invest in, saying that one of their seven “priority areas [is] defence.”
NRFC media declined to answer the question as to what percentage of their investments was in defence industries.
ASDAM’s purchase of Quickstep Holdings in May 2025, saw it acquire a manufacturing plant in Bankstown (NSW) and a plant based at Deakin University in Geelong (Vic), in the Federal seat of the ‘war-hawk’ Defence Minister, Richard Marles. Quickstep Holding’s plant at Deakin Uni was closed down after the ASDAM takeover.
ASDAM’s four other companies have numerous manufacturing plants in regional areas. Levett has two sites in Elizabeth South (SA); Marand Precision is in Geelong (Vic), and Moorabbin (Vic).
Rosebank has its HQ in Bayswater (Vic), as well as plants in Airport West (Vic), Williamtown (NSW), RAAF Amberley near Ipswich (Qld), and Wingfield (SA). TAE Aerospace is in Bundamba (Qld), as well as nearby Ipswich/RAAF Amberley (Qld), Banyo (Qld), Adelaide Airport (SA), and Hallam (Vic).
No Seat at The Table
CPE Capital’s acquisitions of these weapons companies were first discovered in a news item on the website of the military expo events host, the AMDA Foundation. AMDA hosts the bi-annual Avalon Airshow and the Land Forces International Land Defence Exposition.
Those companies CPEC invests in have supported the construction and maintenance of the lethal Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets used by the Israel Air Force that have caused destruction and deaths in Gaza and now in southern Lebanon and Iran.
Unions responsible for the manufacturing sector might not have previously known, until now, of the web of connections of parts-makers, controlled by CPE Capital. And funded by federal government largesse.
The public interest deserves the opaqueness of the links between CPE Capital, the manufacture of weapons used by Israel, major unions and the Federal government to be wiped clear.
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