Pictured above: Jim Lavery

Lawyers in the Birmingham office of international legal practice DLA Piper have acted for an American group which has purchased a Midlands aerospace business.

Goodrich Corporation of Charlotte, North Carolina, has acquired Banbury-based Crompton Technology Group Ltd (CTG), a leading designer and manufacturer of advanced carbon fibre composite products for the aerospace, defence, advanced vehicle and clean energy markets for an undisclosed sum.

Jim Lavery, partner at DLA Piper in Birmingham, acted for Goodrich and CTG was advised by William Nash of Speechly Bircham.

A privately-owned company, CTG employs approximately 150 people at its Banbury facility. 

CTG's products are used on a number of diverse aerospace platforms in production and development.

Primary aerospace products include transmission shafts for flight control and power drive systems as well as specialised pipes used in fuel systems. CTG also has successfully applied its composite design capabilities to a number of other products, including flywheels and accumulators in the clean energy and advanced vehicle markets. 

Jack Carmola, Segment President, Actuation and Landing Systems at Goodrich, said: "CTG's innovative composite design, engineering and manufacturing experience has positioned it to experience significant future growth as aircraft currently in development transition into production.

"This acquisition allows Goodrich to benefit from this expected growth and to expand our composite capabilities into a broader range of Goodrich systems. We intend to leverage CTG's proprietary technology across a number of Goodrich products to benefit commercial and military customers worldwide."

Dr. Scott Roberts, Managing Director of CTG, said: "Over the last few years, CTG has grown rapidly and gained recognition as an innovator in the field of composites. In joining Goodrich, we look forward to continuing to grow the business while maintaining our entrepreneurial drive for designing and manufacturing increasingly advanced technical solutions."

Mr Lavery said: "DLA Piper is delighted to have acted for Goodrich on this transaction. I am sure it will help strengthen our relationship with Goodrich going forward. Aerospace is an important sector for Midlands manufacturing and it is good that our expertise in this area is being recognised by major world players.

"The Goodrich deal rounds off a great few weeks which has seen the DLA Piper Birmingham corporate team acting for overseas clients Finning on the disposal of Hewden Stuart to Sun Capital and Avon on the acquisition of Liz Earle."

Goodrich Corporation, a Fortune 500 company, is a global supplier of systems and services to aerospace, defence and homeland security markets. With one of the most strategically diversified portfolios of products in the industry, Goodrich serves a global customer base with significant worldwide manufacturing and service facilities.