AWST: How do you integrate Meggitt into Parker with the pledges you had to make to the British government? Tom Williams: We've closed more than 80 transactions over the last 20 years, so we have a lot of experience with integration, especially in the last eight years of larger transactions. Many of them were international companies or had an international footprint. If you look at Parker Hannifin, 35-40 of our sales and people are outside the U.S. We're used to multicultural diversity. The commitments we made to the UK government were very natural and logical. We would have made them regardless of whether the government was involved, like honoring national secu- rity contracts, maintaining capabilities in the UK and continuing the center of excellence Meggitt built in Ansty Park in Coventry. We want to keep the engineers and the direct labor.
展开▼