Here we go again.
According to the Daily Telegraph, Krauss-Maffei Wegmann is set to announce today that is has bought Williams Fairey Engineering (WFEL), which was founded in 1915 and has grown into a world leader in the manufacturing of mobile bridges for military forces.
The deal is the latest example of British engineering expertise being snapped up by foreign wealth.
WFEL has been owned by private equity group Dunedin since 2006 and the deal with KMW, which helped to make Tiger tanks for German forces during the Second World War, is thought to be worth around £60m.
The company, which employs 250 engineers at its base in the north-west, is still located in the same factory but diversified into bridge-making in the 1970s. The bridges are used by more than 40 armed forces around the world, including in the UK.
Dunedin do not care about heritage or tradition or the loss of British skills to a foreign competitor because they are only interested in profit. I am sick of these Private Equity companies who trade in companies as if they were commodities, perhaps adding value by asset stripping or making redundancies regardless of the wider consequences.
I believe the British Government should stop this deal and others like it before it's too late.
Wednesday 23 May 2012
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