CZG announces acquisition of Colt
Česká zbrojovka Group (CZG) has announced that it has successfully closed on its acquisition of 100% of the equity interest in Colt Holding Company LLC for $220million in cash and stock.
Colt Holding Company is the parent company of the US firearms manufacturer, Colt’s Manufacturing Company, as well as its Canadian subsidiary, Colt Canada Corporation.
CZG and Colt are confident that the merger will bring significant operational, commercial and R&D synergies for the combined business.
The combined businesses generated Pro-forma aggregated annual sales in excess of $570million and have more than 2,000 employees in the Czech Republic, the United States, Canada and Germany.
The acquisition occurred following the lengthy process of securing all necessary regulatory approvals from the Canadian and the US authorities, which is traditionally reluctant to allow foreign companies to purchase US defence firms.
Colt recently found itself in a position of financial difficulty when the organisation filed for bankruptcy in June 2015.
The contributing factors to the bankruptcy included: bad management, product portfolio and imprudent financial engineering.
Colt officially exited bankruptcy, with its emergence from Chapter 11 restructuring, in January 2016.
This acquisition reflects the renewed confidence in Colt’s financial stability and quality of its products.
More from Defence Notes
-
Can the Trump administration overcome the Pentagon's multiple capability integration issues?
Better integration of systems and sensors across the branches will be critical to ensuring deterrence and readiness.
-
Trump enters the White House promising into bring the US military to a “golden age”
The returning US president also reiterated a commitment to supply the services with “made-in-America” capabilities and to end conflicts worldwide.
-
Incoming Irish government backs plans for larger defence force
It has been more than six weeks since the Irish general election. After long negotiations, a coalition of two of the three largest parties and independents has resulted in a Programme for Government (PfG) which will form the basis of a government almost guaranteed to be formed on 22 January.
-
Top-level commitments but no meat in UK Defence Industrial Strategy’s Statement of Intent
The initial document focused more on creating the right partnerships and inspiring investment in defence than on any details of how future UK Armed Forces would be armed.