Triumph Sells Florida Jet-Parts Division to France’s Daher

(Bloomberg) -- Triumph Group Inc. agreed to sell a Florida aircraft-parts plant to France's Daher SA as part of the U.S. company's move away from the aerospace-structures segment. 

The site at Stuart, on the Atlantic coast, builds wing and fuselage assemblies, Triumph said Wednesday in a statement announcing a definitive agreement. About 400 people are employed at the location.

Closely held Daher, which is expanding in the U.S., said earlier that it was near a deal to acquire the site. The plant will bolster the French company's production capacity in the country and widen its customer base. Terms weren't disclosed. 

The factory supplies Boeing Co. and Gulfstream Aerospace Corp. and generates sales of 200 million euros ($226 million) a year, Daher Chief Executive Officer Didier Kayat told reporters in Paris. After the deal, the group's U.S. business will account for about 40% of total revenue, which surpassed 1.1 billion euros last year, he said. 

The transaction comes as aviation suppliers plot a nascent recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, which saw orders slump as most carriers were forced to ground their fleets. Family-controlled Daher relied on French state-backed loans to weather the crisis, but is now scouting for growth opportunities, Kayat said. Daher has already looked at about a dozen potential targets over the past year, he said.

“We will be among the consolidators,” the CEO said.

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Triumph, based in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, said last year it was in talks with several parties about selling the Stuart factory as part of a move away from the structures sector and toward aircraft systems. CEO Daniel J. Crowley said in November that the unit was profitable.

Turboprop Deliveries

Daher is expecting to deliver 85 turboprops in 2022, up from 68 in 2021 when its stocks went down to zero, Kayat said. These include the TBM and Kodiak families of aircraft. 

The company generates about a quarter of its revenue from Airbus SE, supplying parts for models including the A350 and A330, along with Boeing's Dreamliner. 

The founding family, with Patrick Daher as chairman, can trace its roots to Marseille shipping in 1863. 

Its Sogemarco-Daher holding owns 87.1% of the company, while French investment fund BPI France has 12.5%, according to its website.

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