Triumph to buy Vought for $1.44 billion; shares burst

BANGALORE Tue Mar 23, 2010 11:24am EDT Related News UPDATE 3-Triumph to buy Vought for $1.44 bln; shares jumpTue, Mar 23 2010 Stocks & &

BANGALORE (Reuters) - Aircraft components maker Triumph Group Inc (TGI.N) agreed to acquire Vought Aircraft Industries from D.C.-based private equity giant Carlyle Group in a $1.44 billion cash-and-stock deal, sending its shares up as much as 14 percent to a new year high.

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The acquisition of Vought, whose customers include Boeing Co (BA.N) and EADS-owned (EAD.PA) Airbus as well as the U.S. Air Force, will help Triumph broaden its market presence in the commercial, military and business jet aircraft segments.

Vought, which makes fuselages, wings, empennages, nacelles and helicopter cabins, has companies such as Hawker Beechcraft, Lockheed Martin (LMT.N) and Northrop Grumman (NOC.N) also among its key customers.

Carlyle had bought Vought from Northrop Grumman in 2000 in a deal valued at $1.2 billion, which included $400 million debt, according to a Flight International magazine report at the time.

Triumph said it expects the deal, which will be about 7.5 million shares and $525 million of cash, to add in excess of $1.00 per share to earnings on a full-year run-rate basis.

The deal also includes the assumption of debt Vought has on their books, Triumph said.

"The integration of Vought with Triumph will create a leading tier one capable supplier with strong positions in commercial and military platforms," Triumph Chief Executive Richard Ill said in a statement.

The company said it expects to fund the deal with a combination of current and new credit facilities and has obtained certain financing commitments subject to customary conditions.

Triumph shares were trading up 14 percent at $69.81 in morning trade on the New York Stock Exchange.

(Reporting by Bijoy Koyitty in Bangalore and Megan Davies in New York; Editing by Maju Samuel)

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West Ham United endorse seductiveness in Olympic Stadium West Ham

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West Ham United will confirm today their interest in moving to the Olympic Stadium after the Games in 2012.

The club are keen to rent the stadium in East London when it is redeveloped and have said that they are aware of the pledges made by the Government and Lord Coe, chairman of the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, that the athletics track should remain.

The clubs move comes after the Olympic Park Legacy Company began accepting registrations of interest this week. West Ham"s bid is expected to be opposed by Leyton Orient, the Coca-Cola League One club, based close by. West Ham last week met UK Athletics officials, who also insist that the track should remain, although David Sullivan, the West Ham joint-chairman, has previously been against it.

There are other problems, such as the question of who pays for the redevelopment of the stadium. The cost of reducing the 80,000-seat capacity to about 50,000 seats after the Games could be 100 million, although about 38 million of that will come from the Olympic Park Legacy Company.

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West Ham believe that their case is strengthened by the possibility that the stadium could become an embarrassing white elephant. They also cite the precedent of Manchester Citys move to the City of Manchester Stadium after the 2002 Commonwealth Games.

"We are very excited to be working with Newham and are already bursting with some fantastic and innovative ideas," Karren Brady, the West Ham vice-chairman, said. "West Ham United is a people"s club at the heart of its community and, like the Mayor of Newham, Sir Robin Wales and the council, we want to grab this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create a real, life-changing legacy - not just for this part of London, but for the wider area as well.

"It"s about realising the full potential of the Olympic Park. As well-established local organisations, Newham Council and West Ham United are best placed to make it happen. If achievable it is the ideal answer for those who, rightly, demand a sustainable legacy from the 2012 Games and not a white elephant.

"We acknowledge the need for the stadium to host world-class athletics and so it should. But it can accommodate football, too - and a whole lot more. There has to be a way of achieving that."

Upton Park is likely to be sold for a mixture of retail and housing development and the club have received some support for their plans from Newham Council. Sir Robin Wales, the Newham Mayor, is a season ticket-holder.

"The last thing anyone wants is for the Olympic Stadium to become a ghost of Olympics past," Sir Robin said. "We were concerned about this when London successfully won the bid to host the 2012 Games and we continue to be concerned.

"The only realistic solution is to make the stadium work for a Premier League football team and that should be West Ham United. We have never understood why that wasn"t obvious. Look at what Manchester did after the Commonwealth Games. Why can"t we do that here? West Ham understands the community. It will mean there is a tenant that will look after the place, rather than let it go to ruin."

Yemen sappers come in Shiite insurgent building

Mohammed Ghobari SANAA Sat Feb 27, 2010 11:55am EST Related News Yemen declares state of emergency in southern citySat, Feb 27 2010Top Yemen al Qaeda leader threatens U.S. attacksTue, Feb 23 2010Yemen arrests 80 separatists over southern unrestMon, Feb 22 2010Yemen holds separatists in south, U.N. urges aidSat, Feb 20 2010Yemen rebels hand over two Saudi soldiersThu, Feb 18 2010

SANAA (Reuters) - Yemeni army sappers entered a northern Shi"ite rebel stronghold to clear mines after rebels quit the city of Saada as part of a truce to end a war that has drawn in Saudi Arabia, the defense ministry said on Saturday.

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But tension flared in southern Yemen where authorities imposed heightened security measures in a provincial capital to guard against attacks by separatists.

Yemen, the poorest Arab country, struck a truce on February 11 with rebels who have been fighting the state since 2004 over religious, economic and social grievances in the mountainous north.

The two-week-old northern truce has largely held, while a conflict with southern separatists has simmered.

The rebels left their Saada stronghold, some 240 km (150 miles) north of the capital Sanaa, on Thursday on condition they were masked, and that they were not followed by security.

"After the evacuation, special military engineering teams moved to survey the city and a number of roads and buildings to remove any mines," the defense ministry said in its online newspaper.

The engineers were also removing unexploded ordnance.

A number of displaced residents of the city had also begun to return to inspect their houses in Saada, the website said. The conflict in north Yemen has displaced 250,000 people.

Yemen has shot to the forefront of Western security concerns after the Yemeni arm of al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a failed attempt to bomb a U.S.-bound plane in December.

Western governments and neighboring Saudi Arabia, the world"s biggest oil exporter, fear al Qaeda is exploiting instability on several fronts in Yemen to recruit and train militants to launch attacks in the region and beyond.

Saudi Arabia was drawn into the conflict with northern rebels in November after the insurgents seized Saudi border territory and accused Riyadh of letting Yemeni troops attack them from Saudi ground.

PROTEST IN SOUTH

In Riyadh, where Western and Arab donors were meeting to discuss economic aid for Yemen, a Yemeni official said Sanaa wanted "a faster march" to membership in the wealthier six-member Gulf Cooperation Council.

"Yemen is convinced that its integration within the GCC represents one of the most important means...to enable Yemen to contribute in consolidating regional and international security," said Abdulkareem al-Arhabi, Deputy Prime Minister for Economy, Planning and International Cooperation.

Yemen has previously said it wanted GCC membership by 2015.

In south Yemen on Saturday, authorities said they would toughen security measures in the provincial capital of Dalea, including a ban on carrying weapons in public, citing the possibility of separatist violence two days after a policeman was shot dead in an ambush in a nearby province.

An official earlier said a state of emergency was called in the city but the defense ministry website later denied this.

Hundreds demonstrating in Dalea on Saturday against recent arrests, some carrying the flag of the former South Yemen, which united with the North in 1990, residents and pro-southern websites said.

A southern leader called in a speech on the donors meeting in Riyadh to address the unresolved conflict in the south.

"The marches today ... carry a message to the Riyadh meeting and to the world (toward) the fulfillment of the just demands of the people of the south," Shalal Ali Shayeh told protesters.

People in south Yemen, home to most Yemeni oil facilities, complain that northerners have abused a 1990 agreement uniting the country to grab resources and discriminate against them.

Demonstrations were also held in several other cities, some shut by a strike call by southern activists, websites said. In Abyan province two people were wounded as security forces opened fire to disperse protesters blocking a road.

The policeman"s death on Thursday brought to four the number of people killed in attacks on southern security men in a week as authorities also mounted arrest sweeps targeting separatists.

Tension flared after a protester was killed on February 13 by police. This ignited a week of unrest in which separatists burned northern-owned shops and tried to block a key road.

Security officials have since launched sweeps that netted at least 130 arrests in four southern provinces including Dalea.

(Additional reporting by Mohammed Mukhashaff in Aden, and Ulf Laessing and Souhail Karam in Riyadh; Writing by Cynthia Johnston and Firouz Sedarat; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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