Carlyle Group, the US private-equity firm in which Abu Dhabi’s Mubadala Development Company owns a 7.5 percent stake, has agreed to sell aerospace communications firm Arinc for $1.39bn to Rockwell Collins, a supplier of avionics and other electronic systems for commercial and military aircraft.
The transaction will combine Arinc’s networks and services with Rockwell’s avionics and cabin technologies to benefit from the growing field of aviation information management, Rockwell said in a statement.
Annapolis, Maryland-based Arinc is expected to report more than $600 million in revenue this year, Rockwell said. Carlyle bought Arinc in 2007 from a group of US airlines for an undisclosed sum.
Earlier this month, Carlyle reported this week it had returned to profitability in the second quarter versus a year ago, but it struck a gloomy note on the outlook for private equity deals in the United States this year.
Carlyle said it had $49 billion of available capital for deals, or so-called “dry powder,” at the end of the quarter, including $20.1 billion in private equity and $9.2 billion in energy and real estate. But the Washington, DC-based company said it was struggling to find good private equity deals in the United States this year because of intensified competition.
“Right now, because a lot of people frankly hate Europe in terms of the way they think of investments in Europe, we actually see very good opportunities there,” said co-Chief Executive Bill Conway in a conference call with analysts.
“Even with that, I don’t expect that the European business will be able to invest as much as the United States business does,” said Conway, who founded Carlyle in 1987 together with David Rubenstein and Daniel D’Aniello.
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