Spirit AeroSystems sells Fiber Materials in $165 million deal
January 14, 2025
Spirit AeroSystems has divested its Fiber Materials Inc (FMI) business, “an industry leader in high-temperature materials and reinforced composites,” to Tex Tech Industries for $165 million. The existing senior management team at FMI will retain their roles.
Based in Biddeford, Maine and Woonsocket, Rhode Island, Tex Tech designs and manufactures speciality textiles and fabrics for a wide range of industries and applications, including aerospace elements. Specifically, its aircraft textiles include elements optimised for noise abatement, flame protection, extreme temperature and pressure fluctuation.
Tex-Tech CEO Scott Burkhart described the acquisition of FMI as “highly complementary and strategic for Tex-tech,” adding “a unique set of high performance-products to [its] robust portfolio of thermally protective materials”. He added that FMI’s unique capabilities would also allow Tex-Tech to “better service the rigorous material requirements in the rapidly growing space and defense industry”.
Specifically, expanding into the defense industry was cited as a key rational behind Spirit’s initial acquisition of FMI, something it achieved in in January 2020. At the time, Spirit suggested the move aligned with its own “strategic growth objectives to diversify its customer base and expand the current defense business,” pointing out how FMI’s “unique capabilities have positioned them as a leader in 3D woven carbon-carbon high-temperature materials for hypersonic missiles”.
However, despite attempts to diversify business away from its core commercial offerings, Spirit has been facing mounting losses and ongoing difficulties across several of its aircraft programmes. Additionally, having incurred net losses of $477 million on $1.5 billion in revenue for the third quarter of 2024, Spirit expressed “substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue as a going concern” – acknowledging it will “require additional liquidity to continue its operations over the next 12 months”.
In October 2024, Spirit AeroSystems CEO Pat Shanahan stated that Spirit remains “on track to close the acquisition by Boeing in mid-2025”.
