GDT
| Location: | Deal size: |
|---|---|
| France | €275m |
Global Design Technologies (GDT) is a global market leading aerospace component supplier. The company manufactures ‘permanent couplings’ which are high tensile metal devices used to connect hydraulic, fuel or other tubing in passenger and military aircraft. It has also successfully introduced the couplings to the power generation market where they are used when building or replacing electricity sub-stations.
Bridgepoint acquired the business in a secondary buyout in a transaction totalling €254 million in August 2007. GDT, which operates from sites in France and the US where it can best serve the major French and US original equipment manufacturers, offered a number of investment attractions:
- The company occupies an attractive niche and enjoys a strong market share of the permanent couplings market which continues to demonstrate strong growth characteristics
- Underlying aerospace OEM build programmes offer visibility and therefore revenue predictability
- There is good revenue diversity from the positions GDT has on most major commercial and military aircraft platforms
- There are high barriers to entry thanks to product design and to its ‘mission critical’ status
- The growth prospects of the power generation market and its potential as a separate but complementary revenue stream for the business
Working with management, Bridgepoint has invested in manufacturing capacity and introduced ‘lean manufacturing’ techniques to improve working capital and deliver best operational practice across the group.
Bridgepoint believes that GDT, due to its strategic position as a key supplier to the aerospace industry, and with a growing power products arm, will offer strong growth prospects in the coming years.