Good news on a local company. The combined company will have about 3600 employees, sales of $1.2 bill, (previously 2600 and sales of $750k) with HQ in Winnipeg!!!
from freepress....***
Standard Aero a perfect fit for new owner - Dubai firm chooses city company for its 'operational excellence'
Thu Aug 2 2007
By Martin Cash
Standard Aero, one of the world leaders in providing maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) for gas turbine engines, has been bought by a global aerospace giant.
STANDARD Aero has become the first acquisition -- and potentially the cornerstone -- for a new $15-billion global aerospace firm.
Dubai Aerospace Enterprise bought Winnipeg's Standard Aero and Landmark Aviation based in Tempe, Ariz. for US$1.9 billion US from the Carlyle Group. (Standard went for US$1.034 billion.)
They are the first acquisitions for DAE which was formed in February 2006 by several large Dubai investment firms, as well as the government of Dubai, with the intention of building a global aerospace, manufacturing and services corporation.
Paul Soubry Jr., Standard's CEO will become the president and CEO of the combined Standard and Landmark which will be based in Tempe. A name for the combined entity has not yet been determined.
"This is a very exciting time for our employees," Soubry said. "For the last number of years we had private-equity ownership. We spent a lot of time looking over our shoulders knowing full well that there was going to be an exit strategy. Now for the first time in a decade we will be part of an organization whose stated objective is to build a world-class operating aerospace company."
Standard is one of the world leaders in providing maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) for gas turbine engines for regional airlines, military, business aviation, helicopters and industrial operators around the world.
Landmark does airframe and engine MRO as well as avionics and interior refurbishing of mid-sized and heavy aircraft.
Robert Mionis, the president of DAE's engineering division said the integration of the two companies will mean better opportunities for growing both.
"The combination of the two businesses will create a more balanced portfolio across various market segments like business aviation, military, airlines, helicopter and energy," he said in phone interview from New York.
"As a result of that and the additional scale we'll be able to pursue new customers and grow the business in an effective way."
Mionis is a former senior executive with Honeywell Aerospace and other senior executives with DAE have extensive high-level experience in the aerospace industry.
That's different than Standard's previous two owners. The Carlyle Group, a global private-equity firm bought the company in the summer of 2004 and prior to that Standard was owned by the British private-equity firm Doughty Hanson & Co. since 1998.
Mionis said he and other DAE people have admired Standard Aero from afar for many years.
"Standard is very well known for its operational excellence and prominent market position," he said. "Customers love doing business with them and I feel fortunate to now be involved in the company from the inside."
He said another attractive feature of Standard is its "superb" workforce and its excellent management team that has "been through a lot of change and created a lot of value."
Soubry said there are no plans to alter the Winnipeg operations that employ about 1,300 people. Standard also has another 1,250 employees in facilities in Tennessee, San Antonio, Texas, the Netherlands, Singapore and Sydney, Australia.
He said rather than be concerned that Standard will now have to conform to the corporate culture of another company, Soubry thinks the opposite could happen.
"One of the reasons they sought us out was because they liked the way we operate," he said.
"We are the first major investment. They will use us as a base to build on rather than come in and change our culture. They want to build and use it to leverage growth of DAE."
martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca