Essex Industries on Wednesday said it has acquired Stevens Manufacturing, a small aerospace and defense contractor that primarily supports the rotorcraft market.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Stevens, which is based in Milford, Conn., manufactures precision machined original equipment manufacturer parts and sub-assemblies to companies that primarily support rotorcraft. Evan Waldman, CEO of St. Louis-based Essex, told Defense Daily in an email reply to questions that the deal for Stevens “expands Essex’s relationship with customers such as Sikorsky and Kaman Aerospace across all platforms.” Sikorsky is a unit of Lockheed Martin [LMT] and Kaman Aerospace is part of Kaman Corp. [KAMN].
Waldman said in a statement that both Essex and Stevens “share common markets, manufacturing expertise and values.”
Essex supplies platform controls, liquid oxygen equipment, emergency breathing equipment, gas regulators, and build-to-print services for all major air framers and systems integrators.
Stevens, which has 54 employees and a 62,000-square foot manufacturing facility, will maintain its name. Essex said that Stevens’ location in Connecticut will provide improved service for its customers in the northeastern U.S.
Essex has over 350 employees at its operations in Missouri and Huntington Beach, Calif.
J.H. Whitney Capital Partners, the private equity firm that owned Stevens, used Lincoln International as its financial adviser on the deal. Essex was advised by TrueNorth Capital Partners.