This is from another thread, but it's a great read that really deserved to be on top. I hope the OP doesn't mind - his her original is at @ZIlQQYk-1zzu.
There's some long running history associated with the sale of ESL dating back to year 2008 followed by a hard push in 2012 to rid it all lock-stock & barrel. The whole premise of moving it from a terribly located facility in downtown Seattle near the RR tracks and put into that nice shiny golden building from day one was nothing more than polishing a t–d in attempt to make it more attractive to buyers.
ESL owners and certain investors wanted out of the game prior to softening markets and disclosed their intentions of getting out of the market before economic implosion struck.
There was one primary Big Money chappie who sat on the board who was calling the play to sell it all and get out as seen in The Wall Street Journal: https://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2012/05/24/relational-will-push-esterline-technologies-to-sell-itself/
During the process of trying to rid of it in 2012, I recall someone in the investor world stating they couldn't sell it - it was a hard sell and they couldn't sell ESL for love or money. BAE and Honeywell stated they didn't have a clear understanding of what ESL was along with stating they didn't want anything other than aerospace related business units. At the time, the investor stated there was this security firm in Texas to a division that made arcade games thus, muddying the waters and, to some degree, was seen as excessive baggage.
This is a very long running issue with this company going back more than a decade. I believe this was why they put former CEO of UTC in place back in mid 2014. Curt was a well known expert on poising to sell. He'd been through the sale of GD to Hughes, then Hughes to Raytheon. Raytheon to Goodrich and lastly, Goodrich to UTC for 22.6B dollars per emails to our desktops from HR at the time.
Even the Goodrich handbook - the infamous blue and orange booklet with the courthouse looking building on the cover sporting: "How to Break Down Culture and Tearing Down the Walls" was issued to managers inside Korry with the Goodrich Logo still in tact. Same booklet seen during the UTC Corporate Takeover period of Goodrich.
This was before he was advised to have a publishing company reprint the booklet with ESL branding. I remember Curt's speeches at Goodrich / UTC . Anyone remember these infamous words: "You're either ON the bus or OFF the bus". Insiders know what that meant whenever that line was dropped during all-hands meetings and Top Brass meetings at the executive level. Some were immediately dismissed during an all-hands meeting for raising their hands as OFF the bus.
They were poising the company to sell since 2014 and, based on factual evidence of who bidders were, (UTC was a prior bidding candidate years earlier along with four other potential bidders), it was speculated in the industry that UTC may be the buyer. The whole makeover along with media reports hitting the airwaves employing buzz words such as cost reduction, streamlining, increasing throughput and on-time-delivery and expected larger returns etc, it was all smoke & mirrors throughout the transition period. Typically, models like these are employed quite often via Big Money guys along with, on certain occasions, models that devalue companies indirectly via transformation projects.
Instead of hiring professionals like Price, Waterhouse & Cooper to do the planning like they did when transferring from Seattle to Paine Field, they allowed floor people and employees not experience to take the monumental task on while Top Brass provides "guidance" to assure things go according to plan.
We call this methodology Rearranging of the Furniture. This method is typically employed to impede output thus, shipments are delayed, sales numbers decline, supplier ratings drop, fines are imposed - basically, everything goes against being profitable. This all leads to indirectly having a negative impact on the bottom line. Over time, this can devalue share stocks along with the value of the company. This model is typically employed to reduce the value of a company down to meet a potential buyers bid / offer. I'm not saying this was the case with ESL but rather - it's a tactic employed.
On paper, all checks out - money spent for improvements and shows tremendous effort was put forth. Can't hold anyone accountable for that thus, the chain of events leading to devaluation appear to be natural and indirect as part of Cause & Effect. In the olden days - they used to simply shelve products and hold up shipments in warehouses until that became the 101 investigating parties caught on to that scam.
Moving onto 2018 or so, on the net, made public knowledge, a rumor was in circulation that BAC was the buyer around late 2017-2018.
When the news hit that Transdigm was the buyer, some in the know weren't surprised. This was a long time coming based on factual and historical evidence in not only the investor channels but also Seattle Times. It comes to no surprise that it's actually manifested and become reality at this point.
Time will tell. I think we will know more come Q3 and Q4 of this year after TD announces what their game plan is going forward.