04 Jan 05. A windfall of £2.5m from the sale of a previous engineering company gave Gordon Styles funds to create a manufacturing subcontractor equipped with some of the most high-technology production machinery available. Mr Styles, managing director of Rotherham-based Springer Rapid, which was set up in March 2004 with 15 employees, aims “to build the company to annual sales of £50m within 10 years. I think there is a big future for my kind of manufacturing company in the UK”. While such optimism flies in the face of much of the general gloom about the prospects for British manufacturers, Mr Styles says he is on safe ground. Springer Rapid – backed by £3.2m in private investments, less than half of this from Mr Styles himself – is making highly precise parts in short production runs mainly for the defence and aerospace (Source: FT)
26 Dec 04. Elbit Systems Ltd. (Nasdaq: ESLT – News), (“Elbit Systems”) announced that it reached agreement early this morning with Koor Industries Ltd. (NYSE: KOR – News; “Koor”) to purchase all of Koor’s approximately 32% holdings in Tadiran Communications Ltd. (“Tadiran”) (TASE: TDCM). This purchase will be made in parallel to Koor’s purchase of approximately 9.8% of Elbit Systems’ shares from Federmann Enterprises Ltd. (“Federmann”) based on agreements reached early this morning between Federmann and Koor. The transactions will be executed in two stages as described below. In the first stage Elbit Systems will purchase from Koor approximately 13.8% of Tadiran’s shares, and Koor will purchase from Federmann approximately 5.3% of Elbit Systems’ shares. Elbit Systems already holds approximately 4.4% of Tadiran’s shares acquired through prior purchases on the market, and therefore, following completion of the first stage will own approximately 18.2% of Tadiran’s shares. Elbit Systems will be entitled to appoint the greater of 3 or 20% of Tadiran’s board of directors, and Koor will be entitled to appoint one member of Elbit Systems’ board of directors. In the second stage Elbit Systems will purchase the balance of Koor’s holdings in Tadiran. Koor will purchase an additional approximately 4.5% of Elbit Systems’ shares from Federmann and will be entitled to appoint an additional member to Elbit Systems’ board, including the board’s Vice Chairman. The second stage is subject to Koor completing the sale to Tadiran of Koor’s 70% holdings in Elisra Electronic Systems Ltd.
03 Jan 05. Halliburton on Monday said its subsidiaries Kellogg Brown Root and DII Industries had exited bankruptcy. The company said a US bankruptcy court gave its final confirmation of the plan of reorganisation — including an asbestos settlement — filed by the units, which can now operate their businesses without court supervision.
Halliburton said it expects to fund trusts for current and future asbestos and silica claimants by the end of January. (Source: Reuters)
31 Dec 04. EADS has continued its withdrawal from the telecoms sector with the sale of its Multicoms subsidiary to the UK company Toadcom for what is believed to be one symbolic euro. The UK buyer has also acquired and paid off Multicoms’ debt, which amounted to 4.7m euros at the end of 2003.Multicoms is a telecoms services wholesaler which provides fixed-to-mobile connections and calls to emerging countries on behalf of other operators. Now, however, it is branching out into telecoms for businesses by focusing on companies which operate in emerging countries. Its new chairman, Maroun Najjar, points out, moreover, that Toadcom is owned by the UK group Vox Carriers, which has interests in call centres in countries such as India and a stake in Right Place Call, which is presented in France and Morocco. (Source: Original article by Jamal Henni Abstracted from Les Echos)
27 Dec 04. Goodrich Corp. will receive a $99m partial settlement from Northrop Grumman Corp. related to its October 2003 purchase of TRW Inc.’s aeronautical systems bus