Charleston Regional Development Alliance

Berkeley, Charleston & Dorchester Counties

Printed from www.crda.org

Vought Aircraft Holdings planning IPO

Jun. 9, 2008
Charleston Post and Courier
The parent of one of the Charleston area's biggest manufacturers is planning to offer investors a chance to buy in to its business.

Vought Aircraft Holdings Inc., a Dallas-based company that makes airplane parts, filed papers May 16 with the Securities and Exchange Commission for an initial public offering of stock. The company, currently owned by private equity giant Carlyle Group, hopes to garner up to $250 million in the IPO. It did not say when or for how much it will sell shares, matters usually left until after the SEC has approved a company's financial and other disclosures.

Aviation historically has been a gamble, for investors as well as pilots. And Vought's financials have crashed and burned plenty of times. But the company has climbed steadily in recent years thanks to big contracts with the U.S. military and commercial jet-makers.

Vought has done quite a bit of work on the C-17s that are ubiquitous in Charleston-area skies, and some 300 of its workers are crafting pieces of Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner at a plant in North Charleston. The company has about 6,300 employees around the rest of the country.

Vought bounced from a $229.7 million loss in 2005 to a $46.3 million profit last year. In the first quarter of this year, Vought earned $27.6 million, a 44 percent increase over the year- earlier period.

About half of Vought's revenue comes from making commercial planes, with the other half coming from military and business jets.

Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase will be shopping the shares, if you're feeling lucky.

related information