GKN has hinted strongly that it will bid for Boeing's structures operation in Wichita, Kansas, if it goes on the market. The UK company says it is keen to increase its transatlantic footprint on top of a spending spree which has seen it make nine acquisitions in the USA over the past five years.
"Absolutely we would be interested," says GKN Aerospace Services' group director of sales, marketing and engineering Graham Chisnall. "We have a strategy of expanding in the USA." He adds: "Boeing has been talking about outsourcing more of its activities. If they are embarking on [selling Wichita], it would be of interest to us to assess what that represents."
GKN, which bought Boeing's St Louis structures centre in 2001, earns 70% of its revenue in the USA, a proportion that has steadily increased since the mid-1990s.
However, the acquisition of Wichita - which employs around 10,000 people - would be on a different scale to anything GKN has done before. The company's entire aerospace workforce is only 6,000, two-thirds of which are in the USA.
Boeing announced earlier this month it had appointed investment bank Goldman Sachs to assist it in finding potential buyers for its commercial aircraft manufacturing and modification operations at Wichita and two smaller sites in Oklahoma (Flight International, 20-26 April).
MURDO MORRISON / LONDON
Source: Flight International
