Motherwell-based MB Aerospace buys Polish coatings firm

MB Aerospace boss Craig Gallagher said the acquisition would help it broaden its offering to the expanding aerospace market in Poland

Lanarkshire-based engineering group MB Aerospace has continued on the acquisition trail by buying a Polish coatings business.

MB Aerospace said it had bought Vac Aero (Poland) from its Canadian parent company Vac Aero International for an undisclosed sum.

Vac Aero employs more than 100 staff at two sites in Kalisz and Rzeszow.

It produces protective and performance-enhancing coatings for aero-engine and industrial gas turbine components.

The business will remain at its current sites and will be rebranded as MB Aerospace Technologies (Poland).

MB Aerospace plans to invest across the business, with particular focus on its surface coating services.

The acquisition increases the Motherwell-based company's overall headcount to 1,550, spread across five main manufacturing hubs in the US, Poland and the UK.

MB Aerospace chief executive Craig Gallagher said the acquisition would help the company broaden its offering to the expanding aerospace market in Poland and elsewhere in Europe.

He added: "With thermal and plasma coating capabilities now available to us in the region, we can provide customers with fast, responsive lead times for aero-engine and industrial gas turbine component treatments, whilst mitigating the logistics, and cost, of shipping products long distances to have such critical work done."

In April, MB Aerospace bought Centrax Turbine Components in Newton Abbot.

The Devon components firm, which employs 430 people, specialises in rotating components in the compressor and turbine sections of aero-engines.