Financial Times report
GKN close to helicopter sale
GKN, the engineering group, is expected as early as next week to reach agreement on selling its AgustaWestland helicopter joint venture to Finmeccanica, its Italian partner.
The two companies are understood to be in advanced negotiations over the sale in which Finmeccanica is expected pay about £1.1bn for its UK partner's 50 per cent stake in one of the world's two largest helicopter makers.
The sale is expected to be approved by the British government if it obtains guarantees that Finmeccanica will retain a strategic helicopter manufacturing capability in the UK.
However, such approval could open the government to charges that it is allowing the country's defence industrial base to be taken over by foreign companies.
AgustaWestland manufactures almost all the UK's military helicopters but the order stream from the Ministry of Defence has all but dried up.
Final deliveries of the Apache attack helicopter, built under licence from the US, are due this year and the MoD has delayed a decision on two large helicopter contracts.
The Finmeccanica talks were confirmed yesterday by Sir David Lees, GKN chairman, after months of speculation. As late as last week, GKN denied it had plans to sell its stake in the joint venture, which was created four years ago.