Ball Corp. might eventually consider a spinoff of its aerospace unit, according to chief financial officer Raymond Seabrook.
During a presentation at a Lehman Bros. conference in Miami Beach, Fla., on Tuesday, Seabrook said he doesn’t see a spinoff of Ball Aerospace in the next three or four years.
But, “fundamentally, I think there is a time and place when potentially, maybe not a sale, but a spinoff might make some sense for that business.”
He also said Ball hopes to grow the aerospace unit to $1 billion in sales. Ball Aerospace, based in Boulder, has about 2,500 employees in Colorado. Its major projects include the James Webb Space Telescope and WorldView remote-sensing satellites.
Ball Aerospace had $672 million in sales in 2006, and they are expected to grow to more than $700 million in 2007.
Though Ball Aerospace is only 10 percent of the company, “We’re hoping to make this into a billion dollar top-line business over the next three or four years,” Seabrook said.
Ball Aerospace management “has made some significant gains from where we were four or five years ago. We believe that’s a franchise we can continue to grow inside Ball Corp. for the time being,” he said.
Ball Corp. in 1994 said it had hired Lehman Bros. to help the company decide what to do with Ball Aerospace, with possibilities including strategic alliances, joint venturing all or parts of the group, selling all or parts of it and spinning off all or parts.
A slowdown in defense and space spending had dampened prospects for the aerospace unit. Ball Aerospace then had annual sales of about $268 million. Now, Ball Aerospace’s technologies are “sort of at the forefront in the war on terrorism,” Seabrook said.
Staff writer Kelly Yamanouchi can be reached at 303-954-1488 or kyamanouchi@ denverpost.com.
