French aerospace company Zodiac SA’s move to buy Huntington Beach-based C & D; Aerospace Group for $600 million is the latest,and biggest,in a series of buys in the sector.
In March, Portland, Ore.-based Precision Castparts Corp. paid $194 million to buy Garden Grove’s Air Industries Corp.
Last year, Bellevue, Wash.-based Esterline Technologies Corp. paid $145 million for Buena Park’s Leach International Corp.
In another 2004 deal, Britain’s Smiths Group PLC bought Santa Ana-based landing gear maker Integrated Aerospace Inc. for $110 million.
C & D;, which designs commercial and military aircraft cabin fixtures including overhead bins and cabin lighting, has about $400 million in annual revenue and employs about 3,500 people, the bulk of which are in Southern California.
“There will be some changes,” said Greg Mumpower, president of Syair Designs LLC, a Little Rock, Ark.-based unit of C & D.; “But the companies will remain intact as they are.”
Syair, C & D;’s smallest unit with 15 employees, makes cabin lighting.
The deal has been in the making for about six months, Mumpower said. James Downey, C & D;’s owner, wanted to retire and the chance to sell came along, he said.
Zodiac is taking advantage of the strong euro, Mumpower said. Zodiac has about $2 billion in yearly sales, including $500 million in the U.S.
C & D; is set to be integrated into Zodiac’s U.S. airline equipment segment, which makes passenger seats and waste management systems.
C & D; does machining and retrofit work on the Airbus A380 at two Garden Grove facilities. In Huntington Beach, the company designs aircraft interiors and makes storage bins, lavatories and other products for Boeing Co., Brazil’s Embraer-Empresa Brasileira de Aeron & #225;utica SA and Quebec’s Bombardier Inc.
