New director at Meggitt

Haluk Durudogan has to taken over as President of Meggitt Aircraft Braking Systems, replacing Ken Schwartz who left to pursue private ventures.

Chief Executive of the aerospace and defence engineering firm, Terry Twigger, said: "Ken Schwartz led our aircraft braking systems division successfully through integration and transformation. He hands over to Luke a world-leading business and a highly skilled MABS team with many exciting growth opportunities ahead of them."

The move follows what Credit Suisse described as a "week of negative newsflow for three of the group's key military platforms: F-35 JSF, Black Hawk helicopter & Eurofighter." Together, the three account for around 8% of Meggitt's revenues.

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The Pentagon has binned plans to increase its order for the F-35 in fiscal 2013 and has deferred helicopter upgrades. Meanwhile, the Eruofighter loss in India has been confirmed.

"Defence growth guidance looks optimistic. Eurofighter, F-35 and Black Hawk are all platforms in which growth was expected to offset defence weakness elsewhere," the broker asserted. "We remain cautious on Meggitt's guidance of ~2% medium-term military growth, especially following what we expect to be an unusually strong 2011 for the group's defence business," Credit Suisse said, as it reiterated its under-perform expectation for Meggitt.

Despite Credit Suisse's note, Meggitt's share price rose 0.41% to 364.5p by 13:38.

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