Engineering news
GKN has agreed to acquire Dutch aerospace company Fokker Technologies Group for €706 million (£500.7 million).
Fokker Technologies, which has about 4,900 employees, operates in areas such as landing gear, wing components and electrical wiring.
Nigel Stein, GKN chief executive, said: “This transaction will increase our shipset value on key growth programmes in both the commercial and military markets.
“Fokker’s sizeable China operations also help boost GKN Aerospace’s activity in this important region.”
Alongside the acquisition announcement, GKN reported a 5% fall in pre-tax profit to £212 million for the six months ended 30 June. However, its sales increased by 1% to £3.6 billion in the period.
GKN said organic growth in commercial aerospace (+2%) was partially offset by decline in military (-4%). It added that new work won in the six month period exceed $2.3 billion over the life of the contracts.
The company said GKN Driveline continues to grow ahead of global automotive production as a result of increased content per vehicle. The business unit has won £460 million of new and replacement business.
GKN Land Systems posted an 8% fall in organic sales mainly due to challenging agricultural equipment markets.
Stein said: “This was another solid performance, particularly in our automotive businesses, with GKN Driveline delivering 4% organic sales growth and an 8.3% trading margin while GKN Powder Metallurgy achieved an 11.8% margin.
"GKN Aerospace delivered in line with expectations and won some important new contracts for the future. We have continued to perform well against our key markets and report good results in spite of some end market weakness, particularly in GKN Land Systems. We expect these trends to continue in the second half and for 2015 to be another year of growth,” he added.