Britain's Smiths Group said today it had agreed to sell its aerospace division to US conglomerate General Electric for $4.8 billion (€3.7 billion) in cash.
Smiths said it would return most of the proceeds to shareholders and will now focus on its detection, medical and speciality engineering businesses.
Smiths Aerospace - a secondary supplier of aircraft components such as landing gear parts and propellers - has 11 operations across the United Kingdom and employs 11,000 staff.
GE is the world's second biggest company by market value, with businesses ranging from building jet engines to commercial finance to NBC Universal media.
The aerospace industry is enjoying strong growth amid record plane orders and higher US defence spending. But the flood of new work has come at a cost, and Smiths aerospace unit has been hit by higher development costs.
Smiths said it was aiming to close the deal in the second quarter of this year and expected that it would allow the firm to pursue a "progressive dividend policy".
Agencies