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By Howard Hardee
Sept. 8, 2026, © Leeham News and Analysis: After years of grappling with casting restraints, GE Aerospace has moved to acquire longtime supplier Consolidated Precision Products, an Ohio-based manufacturer that supports GE’s critical Leap and GEnx commercial aircraft engine programs, as well as several defense platforms.
At a purchase price of $11.75 billion—$7 billion in cash and the remainder in debt financing—the deal is expected to close in the second half of 2027, pending regulatory approval. Consolidated Precision Products is currently owned by private investment firms Warburg Pincus and Berkshire Partners.
From the perspective of GE Aerospace, the proposed acquisition is aimed at securing and expanding a critical source of casting capacity amid demand for new engines, aftermarket material, and defense products. It would also more closely align design and manufacturing by bringing Consolidated Precision Products entirely under its umbrella and help meet increasing demand for structural and airfoil castings.
The company believes demand for airfoils—blade-shaped engine parts that interact with airflow, such as turbine blades and vanes—will increase by roughly 30% by 2030.
Taking a step back, the deal signals that GE Aerospace deems casting capabilities as critical enough to bring at least partially in-house. It can also be viewed as part of the broader trend of aerospace OEMs acquiring and integrating key suppliers.
GE Aerospace describes the importance of Consolidated Precision Products to its supply chain in a Sept. 8 announcement: “CPP is one of the world’s largest producers of investment and precision sand castings, producing complex super alloy, titanium, aluminum, magnesium, and steel castings for a variety of leading commercial and military aircraft, weapon systems, commercial and regional/business jets, helicopters, and industrial gas turbines.”
GE Aerospace says it has been engaged as a Consolidated Precision Products customer for more than 15 years. Of course, GE Aerospace is not the firm’s only customer. Upon the deal’s closure, GE Aerospace intends for Consolidated Precision Products to operate as a separate business unit that will maintain relationships with its present customers.
In other words, no spin-offs from Consolidated Precision Products are anticipated, though the deal’s final structure is dependent on regulatory approvals. There is precedent for this sort of arrangement in GE Aerospace’s portfolio, including Unison Industries, Dowty Propellers, and Italy’s Avio Aero—all of which support the broader market, working in some cases with GE Aerospace’s competitors.
GE Aerospace’s plan to implement a similar model with Consolidated Precision Products could therefore boost casting capacity across the supply chain.
Notably, GE Aerospace is not abandoning other casting suppliers. It will continue working with companies such as ATI and Howmet Aerospace.
GE Aerospace and other enginemakers had been feeling the castings pinch point even prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, which ground aerospace manufacturing to a near-standstill and placed extreme pressure on the supply chain. More recently, competitor RTX has been working to boost structural casting capacity in Asheville, North Carolina, while Safran, GE Aerospace’s partner on CFM International, has also invested heavily in forgings at its facility near Paris.
Engine supply and maintenance capacity have been among the most-critical issues facing the global commercial aerospace industry. Airbus A320neo-family operators among the hardest-hit due to exposure to Pratt & Whitney’s massively disruptive, years-long recall of geared turbofan engines. To a lesser but still significant extent, operators of narrowbody jets powered by CFM Leap engines have struggled with limited supply and long shop turnaround times.
In June, GE Aerospace briefed reporters on its efforts to improve durability and time-on-wing of its Leap family of engines, which power some A320neo-family jets, as well as Boeing 737 Max aircraft and Comac’s C919. The company maintains that its recent maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) expansion plans and new authorized repair centers will be sufficient to meet global demand.
During the company’s earnings call in July, CEO Larry Culp pointed to output increases across its suppliers, citing deeper technical collaboration and joint problem-solving for easing production bottlenecks and unlocking additional capacity. “It’s much more a supply-side challenge than it is a demand,” Culp said at the time.
To this end, GE Aerospace previously announced a billion-dollar program to expand its own facilities, create new ones, and authorize third parties to provide MRO across its commercial engine line. It also launched a program to collaborate more closely with suppliers to ensure the quality and on-time delivery of parts and components.
The enginemaker’s move to acquire Consolidated Precision Products is part of that effort, and an opportunity to extend its Flight Deck operating model to a key supplier.
During the July call, Culp described artificial intelligence as “a force multiplier for Flight Deck,” citing a recent effort across the company’s Turbine Module and Airfoils business. After simplifying demand planning with Flight Deck and automating the process with AI, the company said it reduced processing time by nearly 90% across 190 parts.
This broader context provides a view into how critical castings are for GE Aerospace’s production system.
“Investing in mission-critical casting capacity is needed to support the strong simultaneous demand across commercial engines, aftermarket and defense,” Culp said. “By combining GE Aerospace’s technology capabilities and Flight Deck with CPP’s manufacturing experience we expect to expand capacity, improve performance and accelerate new engine technologies for the current fleet and next-generation platforms.”