London-based Smiths Group PLC’s $110 million acquisition last year of Santa Ana-based Integrated Aerospace Inc. already has paid off.
The Santa Ana unit, which now goes by Smiths Aerospace, won a $150 million contract to design and develop landing gear for Northrop Grumman Corp.’s X-47B combat aircraft.
Delivery is set for the first quarter of 2006.
Smiths has about 200 workers in Santa Ana in about 300,000 square feet of space. It also has a Signal Hill plant.
Smiths’ parts are found on helicopters, unmanned aerial vehicles, commercial planes and military aircraft such as United Technologies Corp.’s Black Hawk helicopter and Boeing Co.’s Super Hornet.
Ongoing projects in Santa Ana include an $18 million order for 950 fixed landing gears for the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, due by the end of 2006.
Boca Raton, Fla.-based Brockway Moran & Partners Inc., which sold the Santa Ana operation to Smiths, formed the business in 1999 by combining four companies: Trig Holding Inc.; Derlan Inc.; Sun Eight Co.; and High Tech West Inc.
Brockway said it decided to sell the business while the aerospace market was on the upswing.
The firm also sold Dynamic Cooking Systems Inc. of Huntington Beach in
2003 to New Zealand’s Fisher & Paykel Appliance Holdings Ltd. for about $33 million.
