Filtronic pays pounds 26m for US firm

FILTRONIC, the manufacturer of microwave products for global cellular to electronic warfare applications, has agreed to buy an American firm in a deal worth pounds 26m.

Yorkshire-based Filtronic has agreed to acquire the business and some assets of Litton Solid State (LSS), part of Litton Systems of California.

LSS produces semiconductors which are used in microwave integrated circuit assemblies. In the year to July its sales grew by nearly a third to around pounds 24m.

News of the acquisition came as Filtronic, which is also involved in cable telecommunications components, posted greatly improved results and confidently predicted further profits growth in the future.

In the year to May 31 the company made a record pre-tax profit of pounds 11m on sales of pounds 94.1m. This compares with pounds 4.1m on pounds 46.4m in the previous year.

Filtronic employs almost 900 people in Britain, most of them at Shipley near Bradford, although it also has staff at Stewarton and Hamilton in Scotland, Wolverhampton and Milton Keynes.

Its operations in the US and Australia have around 550 workers between them.

"During the year, the foundations have been laid to establish a global strategy as the leading supplier of customised microwave and millimetre wave components and subsystems," said the chairman, Professor David Rhodes.

Filtronic shares closed down 16.5p at 420p, having gained 8.2 per cent last week.