Sky's the limit for Polyflex Aerospace
January 2006
Polyflex Aerospace, one of the UK’s fastest growing suppliers of cryogenic systems to major international defence procurement programmes, including the Joint Strike Fighter, the IRIS T missile and the EFA Typhoon “Eurofighter” has been acquired by Ultra Electronics plc.When CEO and shareholder, Jim Bradbury decided to exit from the company, he asked Livingstone to find an appropriate buyer. Having carried out a discreet marketing exercise in the U.K. and abroad, the shareholders decided that, despite extensive interest from potential purchasers, a sale to major customer Ultra Electronics would deliver Polyflex the solution they were seeking.
Jim Bradbury comments: “We visited other corporate advisors before finally choosing Livingstone. The clinching issues as far as we were concerned were that Livingstone were able to demonstrate recent experience of doing business in the defence sector and they have excellent contacts at a very senior level with many of the companies that we thought would be interested in acquiring Polyflex. Livingstone had an appreciation of the value of our involvement in long term defence programmes and we did not have to spend any time at all in explaining our market positioning to them. The Information Memorandum was skilfully written, and well produced, and Livingstone helped significantly with the management presentations to the various interested parties. During the course of the final negotiations, Livingstone were always there to help us and to ask the awkward questions that we, negotiating with our largest customer, might have found very difficult. We also found that the people at Livingstone were all extremely friendly and helpful and did not exhibit any of the stress that must go hand in hand with the work they do. Very well done, Livingstone.”
Jeremy Furniss, the partner at Livingstone who led the transaction, added: “Ultra approached the deal with an open-mind and successfully balanced their role as both acquirer and customer, which could have been fraught with concern for our vendors. Our experience in selling businesses in the Defence sector was vital in bringing this deal to a conclusion. It represents our fourth completed deal in the sector in the last nine months in what has become a very specialist M&A market.”
Jeremy Furniss, Partner
Tel: 020 7484 4703
Email: jfurniss@livingstonepartners.co.uk
Graham Carberry, Deal Leader
Tel: 020 7484 4728
Email: gcarberry@livingstonepartners.co.uk
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