Senior Engineering pays pounds 34m for Jet

SENIOR ENGINEERING, the acquisitive specialist aero-engineering group, has bought Jet Products Corporation for $56m (pounds 33.7m), mainly in cash and inclusive of company debt.

Jet, based in San Diego, California, is a specialist maker of components for aero-engines and turbines, and is a leading supplier to General Electric, Pratt & Whitney, Rolls-Royce and the Airbus range of aircraft. It made profits of pounds 5m on sales of pounds 27.2m in the year to the end of September.

Ronald Blair, Jet's president and largest shareholder with 40 per cent of the business, will take $4m in shares in Senior as part of his consideration and will remain as general manager of Jet, together with the rest of Jet's executive team.

The deal is the largest of Senior's nine acquisitions in seven countries in the past 12 months and will raise the value of the Rickmansworth-based group's growing aerospace revenues by a further 50 per cent. The business will operate in parallel with Senior's existing US businesses and widen the range of products it can offer.

Senior's shares more than halved in value during the summer market slump before staging a modest recovery. Yesterday they fell 3p to 125p.