Safran to acquire Collins Aerospace’s actuation and flight control business

By Nicky Godding

25 July 2023

Share

The Business Magazine article image for: Safran to acquire Collins Aerospace’s actuation and flight control business

Safran is to acquire Collins Aerospace’s high-technology actuation and flight control activities, which are mission critical for commercial & military aircraft and helicopters. The business has around 3,700 employees across eight facilities in Europe (France, UK and Italy) and in Asia. It is expected to generate sales of approximately $1.5 billion and an EBITDA of $130 million in 2024.

Its UK sites are based in Wolverhampton and Banbury.

Collins Aerospace is currently owned by Raytheon Technologies, which rebranded to RTX recently.

Olivier Andriès, Chief Executive Officer of Safran, said: "The contemplated transaction represents a unique opportunity to develop our position in mission critical actuation and flight control functions. Our highly complementary product offerings would create a global leader in these segments with around $1.8 billion of sales. The transaction would enable us to deliver a comprehensive offering to our clients and position us extremely well for next-generation platforms as the segments move toward increased electrification. The business is a perfect fit with both our product portfolio and our DNA with leading technologies, recurring aftermarket sales, and profitable growth.."

The transaction is expected to generate approximately $50 million of annual pre-tax run-rate cost synergies, which would be progressively implemented from 2025 to 2028. Such synergies would notably come from economies of scale in procurement, R&D complementarity, internalization of sourcing and production flows. In addition, commercial synergies would be obtained through integrated offerings and a diversification of customers and geographic mix. Commercial synergies would continue post 2028 with run-rate achieved on next-generation aircraft by the middle of the next decade.

By Nicky Godding

Nicky Godding is editor of The Business Magazine. Before her journalism career, she worked mainly in public relations moving into writing when she was invited to launch Retail Watch, a publication covering retail and real estate across Europe.

After some years of constant travelling, she tucked away her passport and concentrated on business writing, co-founding a successful regional business magazine. She has interviewed some of the UK’s most successful entrepreneurs who have built multi-million-pound businesses and reported on many science and technology firsts.

She reports on the region’s thriving business economy from start-ups, family businesses and multi-million-pound corporations, to the professionals that support their growth and the institutions that educate the next generation of business leaders.