17 Aug 14. Former Meggitt CEO buys Shimtech. European investment house Bridgepoint is set to sell aircraft composites maker Shimtech to a group led by former Meggitt CEO Terry Twigger, UK newspaper The Sunday Times reported on 17 August. Shimtech makes aerospace components and composite structures for several commercial and military aircraft through its supplier relationships with Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. According to The Sunday Times, Auctus Industries – the group led by Twigger – will pay about USD200m for company, which it will use as a launchpad to consolidate a number of aerospace equipment makers through further acquisitions. Bridgepoint bought Shimtech in 2011 from Hampson Industries for USD84m. (Source: IHS Jane’s)
13 Aug 14. Rule change makes more companies vulnerable to U.S. sanctions. Companies even partly owned by individuals sanctioned by the U.S. government could find themselves blacklisted as the result of a rule change announced on Wednesday by the Treasury Department. Treasury, which is responsible for applying and enforcing U.S. sanctions, has had the power to blacklist any company in which a U.S.-sanctioned individual owned at least a 50 percent stake. Under the new rule, companies could see their assets frozen and be prevented from doing business in the United States if the aggregate ownership stakes of all individuals sanctioned by the U.S. government reached the 50 percent threshold. Douglas Jacobson, a lawyer in Washington who specializes in trade and sanctions, said the amendment “represents a significant change” that would force firms to re-evaluate which entities could be blocked under U.S. law. Any company owned by at least two of the three U.S.-sanctioned Russian billionaires, Gennady Timchenko and Boris and Arkady Rotenberg, for example, could be blacklisted even if each stakeholder only had a 25 percent interest. The United States added the three men, who are close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, to its sanctions list in March after Russia rushed to consolidate its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea region. U.S. sanctions were expanded to include Russian banks and energy and defense companies in recent months, as part of an effort to punish Russia for what the United States and other Western nations view as its role in fueling a separatist rebellion in eastern Ukraine. (Source: glstrade.com/Reuters)
17 Aug 14. For DynCorp, 2014 may end up as a year to forget. The McLean-based defense contractor has been cited for labor violations by the Defense Department inspector general, seen sales drop by more than 30 percent and replaced its chief executive twice in one month. Most contractors have had to reset their operations as federal spending has slowed. But DynCorp has been hit especially hard because it is one of the largest U.S. contractors in Afghanistan, where a military drawdown is in full swing. DynCorp helped the U.S. government in training Afghan law enforcement officials and providing logistical support on the ground. Last quarter, its logistics unit posted the largest drop in sales at the company — a 42 percent falloff. Jim Geisler, DynCorp’s interim chief executive, told investors in a conference call that the “aggressive pace” of the U.S. pullout from Afghanistan was hurting the Virginia company’s programs. Some industry observers say the company might have done more to anticipate the drawdown. Only last year did it consolidate itself into three units — DynAviation, DynLogistics and DynGlobal, a new unit specifically targeting international work. Steven Gaffney, the chief executive who led the company through that transition, was blunt about DynCorp’s need to focus on expansion outside the United States. At an industry event in May, Gaffney said that relying on federal programs was “not a truly viable growth strategy.” It did not help that the company found itself accused of improperly charging the government more than $100m when it was a subcontractor for North