Collins Aerospace and Pratt & Whitney parent RTX has agreed to sell Simmonds Precision Products, a maker of aircraft fuel-sensing systems and other parts, to US aerospace firm TransDigm Group for $765 million.
RTX says the deal, disclosed on 30 June, will see its Collins Aerospace division – under which Simmonds sits – divest the entirety of its “sensing and controls business portfolio”.
The sale, which is subject to US regulatory approval, will allow RTX and Collins “to focus on and invest in our core business priorities”, RTX says.
The planned divestiture comes as RTX also works to sell Collins’ flight control business to Safran, though that deal is being held up by the US Department of Justice (DOJ).
Vermont-based Simmonds was part of the former Goodrich business that was acquired by the then United Technologies (UTC) in 2012. It subsequently ended up in the Collins Aerospace portfolio after UTC merged with Rockwell Collins in 2018. RTX was then formed in 2020 by Raytheon’s merger with UTC.
Simmonds employs some 900 people and produces “fuel and proximity sensing and structural health monitoring” products for the aerospace and defense segments, with 40% of its revenue – estimated to be roughly $350 million this year – coming from aftermarket services.
TransDigm, based in Cleveland, disclosed the pending acquisition, expected to be an all-cash deal, on 30 June.
Simmonds’ “highly engineered, proprietary products with substantial aftermarket content fit well with our long-standing strategy,” says TransDigm chief executive Kevin Stein. “We expect this acquisition to create equity value in line with our long-term private equity-like return objectives.”
The deal aligns with TransDigm’s broader plan to expand through acquisition. The company is pursuing a “selective acquisition strategy, concentrating on proprietary commercial aerospace component businesses with significant aftermarket content”, it says.
TransDigm’s products include aircraft power and control products, such as power conditioning systems, electric motors, generators and mechanical and electromechanical actuators. Its airframe division makes products including latching devices, cockpit security components, cockpit displays, radio systems and thermal protection products.
Meanwhile, RTX’s much larger planned divestiture of Collins’ actuations and flight controls business to French firm Safran for $1.8 billion remains in limbo.
Safran agreed to buy the assets in July 2023, but on 17 June the DOJ sued to block the deal unless Safran agrees first to divest its North American “trimmable horizontal stabilizer actuators” (THSA) business.
In its lawsuit, the DOJ notes that Safran’s stabiliser business was formerly owned by UTC until its divestment was mandated in 2018 as part of the approval process for the Rockwell Collins merger. Safran bought the business.
The DOJ now says Safran’s acquisition of Collins’ flight-control business would “recombine” assets it previously required be separated.
