GE Aerospace to buy jet-engine castings maker CPP for $11.75 billion

GE Aerospace said Tuesday it has agreed to buy Consolidated Precision Products, one of the world's largest makers of the metal castings used inside jet engines, for $11.75 billion in cash, a bet that owning a critical supplier outright will help unblock a parts shortage that has left thousands of engines waiting to be finished.

The deal, detailed in a press release posted to GE Aerospace's newsroom and disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, is the Evendale, Ohio-based engine maker's largest acquisition since it split from the old General Electric conglomerate in 2024. It marks a shift from GE Aerospace's usual practice of qualifying multiple outside suppliers toward buying its way to a guaranteed source of a part the entire industry cannot get enough of.

The numbers

GE Aerospace will pay $11.75 billion for CPP, funding roughly $7 billion of the purchase price from cash on hand and the remainder through new debt, according to the company. The price values the privately held castings maker at about 18 times its projected 2027 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization once expected cost savings are included, or roughly 26 times without them. GE Aerospace said it expects around $200 million in annual net synergies and forecast the acquisition will add to adjusted earnings per share and free cash flow in its first full year under GE ownership.

• Purchase price: $11.75 billion, financed with about $7 billion cash plus new debt
• Seller: private equity firms Warburg Pincus and Berkshire Partners
• CPP workforce: roughly 6,600 employees across more than 20 facilities worldwide
• Expected close: second half of 2027, pending regulatory approval

CPP, founded in 1991 and based in Cleveland, makes investment and precision sand castings in superalloy, titanium, aluminum, magnesium and steel for commercial and military jet engines, business and regional jets, helicopters and industrial gas turbines. Its parts are used on programs including the Boeing 737, 777 and 787 and the Airbus A320 and A380 families. GE Aerospace has been one of CPP's customers for more than 15 years.

How the shortage built up

The purchase lands in the middle of an aerospace supply chain squeeze that has run for several years and shows little sign of easing. A bulletin from the International Air Transport Association found the industry absorbed more than $11 billion in extra costs in 2025 alone from delayed deliveries, and that airframes are increasingly being "parked until engines are available" because engine-makers cannot get castings, forgings and other components fast enough. IATA also put the global order backlog at more than 17,000 aircraft, equivalent to roughly 12 years of current production at existing rates, and said normal supply and demand were unlikely to realign before the early 2030s.

Castings — the metal components formed by pouring molten alloy into molds — sit near the root of that bottleneck. Smaller specialty foundries that supply them never fully rebuilt their workforces after pandemic-era layoffs, and qualifying a new casting supplier for a jet engine part can take years because of the safety testing involved. That has left engine-makers competing for capacity at a small number of suppliers, CPP chief among them, a dynamic trade publication Aviation Week described as a structural constraint on how fast engine production can scale up.

Who is affected

For CPP's roughly 6,600 employees, the deal changes ownership from two private equity firms to a strategic industrial buyer for the first time since the company was founded; GE Aerospace has not detailed what, if any, changes are planned for CPP's plants or workforce once the deal closes. For Boeing and Airbus, whose current jets rely on CPP-made parts, the transaction consolidates a supplier both plane-makers depend on under the roof of one of their own engine partners, raising questions other engine-makers and airframers will likely want answered as regulators review the deal. CPP also counts defense programs and industrial turbine makers among its customers, meaning the Pentagon's supply chain is affected as well.

GE Aerospace's own shareholders were left digesting a deal that, unlike many recent aerospace transactions, was framed around securing a scarce industrial input rather than adding new revenue lines. Coverage of the announcement noted the stock's reaction was muted, trading little changed on the day, which several analysts read as investors judging the deal sensible rather than transformative.

What executives and analysts are saying

GE Aerospace chief executive H. Lawrence Culp Jr. framed the purchase as addressing a capacity problem the company cannot solve simply by writing bigger purchase orders.

"This is an opportunity to invest in a mission-critical commodity, casting, in terms of the capacity that's required," Culp said, describing the acquisition as tied to "strong simultaneous demand across commercial engines, aftermarket and defense."

Wall Street's initial reaction leaned favorable. Jefferies reiterated its buy rating on GE Aerospace and estimated the acquisition could add between 1.5% and 2.5% to the company's 2028 earnings per share, while Goldman Sachs also kept its buy rating in place. Among analysts tracked by research firms, the large majority continued to rate GE Aerospace shares a buy following the announcement.

What happens next

The transaction is not expected to close until the second half of 2027, a longer runway than many corporate acquisitions, reflecting the regulatory approvals GE Aerospace said the deal is subject to, including antitrust review given CPP's role supplying multiple rival engine and airframe programs. GE Aerospace said the deal will not change its existing capital allocation plans, including dividends and share buybacks, and that it expects to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on capital investment at CPP's plants as part of integrating the business and expanding casting capacity. Paul, Weiss is advising GE Aerospace on the legal side with Evercore and PJT Partners as financial advisers; CPP is being advised by Morgan Stanley and Guggenheim Securities, with Cleary Gottlieb as legal counsel, according to the companies' announcement.

Until the deal closes, CPP will continue operating independently under Warburg Pincus and Berkshire Partners' ownership, and the broader industry bottleneck the acquisition is meant to address is expected to persist for years regardless of who owns the foundries producing the parts.