Arlington Capital Partners has completed the acquisition of Gooch and Housego, the Ilminster based maker of advanced photonic and optical components, taking the company private from London’s AIM market. Shareholders received 1,230 pence in cash per share under a scheme that became effective on October 16, valuing the equity at about 345.6 million pounds against an implied enterprise value of 400.5 million pounds on the original July terms, a 40.7 percent premium to the closing price before the offer.
G&H, founded in 1948, employs about 1,000 people across the UK, the US and other locations and makes precision optics, acousto and electro optics, fibre optics and thin film coatings. Its components are used in directed energy and counter drone systems, precision navigation in GPS denied environments, semiconductor fabrication, subsea and space communications, and medical devices, a mix that has tilted the business toward defence as its fastest growing market.
Arlington, a Washington area firm specialising in government regulated industries with more than 14 billion dollars raised over 27 years and a 6 billion dollar seventh fund, said it will increase investment in organic growth and manufacturing capacity at G&H’s US and UK centres and support acquisitions to build a broader photonics platform. Trading in G&H shares was suspended on completion, with AIM cancellation expected on October 19.
The transaction is a clean example of the transatlantic defence supply chain trade: US private capital buying a listed British component maker whose products are inputs to weapons programmes on both sides of the Atlantic, at a price public investors were not paying for the same cash flows inside a small cap listing.