Possibly, but they have invested millions at the site and continue to
employ a couple of thousand people in the aviation sector, which has
to be better than closing the site completely as per the car industry!
I'm not being critical of the present owners, just wondering why we
didn't have the vision and balls to keep it uk owned. The buyers
(Was it Honeywell ?) obviously saw value and synergy in the aquisition,
so why couldn't we ?. If you look at older issues of Flight, the UK was
teeming with advanced avionics companies and all that went with it, but
now a pale shadow of it's former self. I know there's been a lot of
rationalisation with the end of the cold war, which probably explains
some of it. Also economies of scale, critical mass etc that make it
very difficult to develop some types of high tech without a lot of
prior experience over a very wide range of skills and knowledge base,
but Smiths were a first class company, with some very bright people
and it deserved better.
Slight interest in that I worked at the Basingstoke site for a couple
of years and still have great respect and good memories. What is it
now ? a cathedral to consumerism, a branch of tesco of all things
...