The appeal of East of England engineering excellence to major American corporations continues unabated with news that two world-beating US-based manufacturers have acquired three of the region’s leading international electronics businesses.
Top electronics manufacturer, AMETEK, has acquired the two Essex and
Herts-based businesses of Umeco plc’s repair and overhaul division as
part of a £36 million deal designed to establish a major maintenance,
repair and overhaul (MRO) operation.
Parker Hannifin – whose annual sales exceed $10 billion (£4.8bn) –
acquired the 191-strong operation of Milton Keynes-headed Kay
Pneumatics for an undisclosed amount.
All three businesses in Umeco Repair & Overhaul – AEM Ltd in
Stansted, St Alban’s Avionics Mobile Services (AMS) and Tolouse firm
Antavia – have transfered to AMETEK’s Aerospace & Defense division,
further expanding its third party MRO services.
AMETEK is a leading global manufacturer of electronic instruments and
electromechanical devices with annualised sales of approximately £1bn,
approximately 10,000 employees and over 70 manufacturing locations
worldwide.
Umeco R&O is the foremost independent provider in the UK of MRO
services to the aviation industry. It employs around 300 staff
worldwide including 220 UK-based AEM and AMS employees. Its revenues
for the year to March 31 hit £24.1m (2006: £20.4m) – expected to climb
to £28m next year.
While AMETEK now has a global MRO platform following this and earlier
acquisitions – Southern Aeroparts and B&S Aircraft Parts – and
Antavia is working to achieve some identified revenue synergies, the
company says that it intends to keep operations as they are with no
plans for any divisional consolidation.
“Umeco R&O provides us with a strong presence in the European MRO
market, greatly expanding the range of products and airframe platforms
that we are now able to support,” said AMETEK chair and CEO, Frank
Hermance.
The AEM division is itself one of the largest independent component
repair and overhaul facilities in Europe. As well as its Stansted
operation, it has a facility at Luton Airport housing the Aviation
Windings and Aeromedic Innovations – which Umeco R&O integrated
into AEM in 2006 – and a small operation in Singapore.
As with all its acquisitions, the terms of the deal that brought Kay
Pneumatics – known as KV Automation – into Parker Hannifin remain
undisclosed other than it will operate within the Automation Group and,
with sales figures for the last financial year past £20m, is expected
to be accretive to earnings in its first full year of operations.
Parker Hannifin employs more than 57,000 people in 43 countries and its
massive revenues make it the world leader in motion and control
technologies. KV employs 191 staff worldwide, 141 of whom are based in
the UK.
It produces pneumatic valves, cylinders and precision electro-pneumatic
control systems and will continue to leverage its rapid-prototyping
capability to design and manufacture fully integrated electro-pneumatic
and electro-fluidic system solutions for customer specific applications
such as bus door actuation and anaesthesia and mobile emergency
ventilator modules for medical use.
Headquartered in Milton Keynes, KV has operations in the United States,
Spain, France, Netherlands, Thailand, Malaysia, China, India and United
Arab Emirates and manufacturing sites in the UK, US and India.
Commenting on KV, Roger Sherrard, president of Parker’s Automation
Group, said: “Their innovative, systems driven culture of more than 40
years complements our own and strengthens our industry expertise in key
markets.
“These extensive capabilities, already well aligned with our global
target markets, will allow us to bring even more value to our
customers.”
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