Visabeira Extends Its US Push With a Florida Electrical Firm That Wires SpaceX and Blue Origin
The Viseu-based group bought Carter Electric — 300-plus staff, over $50M in expected revenue, clients including SpaceX and Blue Origin — via its Sargent Electric arm, lifting its US turnover past $1 billion a year. CEO Nuno Marques called it a major strengthening in a key market.
Grupo Visabeira, the Viseu-based conglomerate that has quietly become one of Portugal's most internationally exposed companies, is deepening its bet on the United States. The group announced the acquisition of Carter Electric, a Florida electrical-installations firm whose client roster includes two of the biggest names in the American space industry, SpaceX and Blue Origin.
The purchase is being made through Sargent Electric, the US electrical contractor Visabeira itself bought in 2025, and it slots Carter Electric into a fast-growing American arm. Founded in 2003, Carter employs more than 300 people, runs operations around Orlando and Tampa, and is expected to post revenue above 50 million dollars this year. With the deal, Visabeira's combined turnover in the United States now exceeds one billion dollars a year, a milestone for a firm that a decade ago was known mainly for telecommunications construction on the Iberian Peninsula.
Visabeira framed the move as a strategic reinforcement rather than an opportunistic buy. Chief executive Nuno Marques said the acquisition "significantly strengthens the group's presence in one of the sector's most attractive and dynamic markets," pointing to the surge in demand for specialised electrical work tied to data centres, advanced manufacturing and the private space race. Carter's existing management, led by Doug Carter, will stay on to run the business, a continuity the group said was central to preserving its client relationships.
Those relationships are the acquisition's real prize. Wiring the launch and manufacturing facilities of companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin demands contractors that can meet exacting technical and safety standards, and a foothold with those clients is difficult for a newcomer to win. By buying an established local player, Visabeira inherits both the workforce and the credentials, avoiding the slow grind of building an American reputation from scratch.
The deal fits a clear pattern. Visabeira reported revenue of 2.2 billion euros in 2025, with organic growth above 16%, and now employs around 9,000 people across eleven countries. Energy accounts for roughly half of its business, and the United States and United Kingdom together generate more than 55% of group revenue — a striking figure for a company rooted in the Beira interior. Rather than chase headlines at home, Visabeira has spent recent years expanding abroad through bolt-on acquisitions in the electrical and infrastructure trades, assembling scale in markets far larger than Portugal's.
For the wider Portuguese economy, Visabeira's trajectory is a reminder that some of the country's most dynamic corporate stories are being written overseas. The group's American revenue now dwarfs what many listed Portuguese companies earn in total, and its willingness to compete for contracts servicing the frontier of the space industry marks a long distance travelled from its origins. The Carter acquisition, modest in headline value, is another step in a strategy that treats the United States not as a side venture but as a core market — and one where a family-controlled company from Viseu is increasingly at home.
