Restructuring
In 1972 the company sold the tractor operations to Tenneco Inc. of America, who owned the J.I. Case tractor company. The sale was due to a reduction in the UK tractor market and the increased product development costs and the need to meet new regulations on Health and Safety and increased competition from imported machinery.
In 1990, the family disposed of its stake to its management who then floated the group as a public company in 1993. David Brown was acquired by Textron Inc. in October 1998.
The company, trading as David Brown Engineering Ltd, headquartered in Huddersfield, is now a leading supplier of heavy transmission systems for industrial, defence, railway and marine applications. These include transmissions for the British Challenger 2 tanks and American Bradley Fighting Vehicles. Railway transmissions are produced for their Chinese branch 'David Brown China', in a joint partnership called 'Jiangsu Shinri David Brown Gear Systems' at a factory in Changzhou near Shanghai.
Read more about this topic: David Brown Ltd.