Hexcel buys stake in Oxford to boost aerospace capabilities

Hexcel Corp. Hexcel’s ground breaking ceremony at its new Morocco site.

Composites maker Hexcel Corp. has acquired a stake in Oxford Performance Materials, a specialty compounder and 3-D parts maker in South Windsor, Conn.

The investment will allow Stamford, Conn.-based Hexcel to increase commercial applications of high-performance additive manufacturing in the aerospace market, officials said in a May 31 news release.

The size of the stake Hexcel is acquiring and the transaction price were not included in the release. The investment “is an ideal opportunity for our two companies to work together to enable faster product development and adoption for our customers,” Hexcel Chairman, CEO and President Nick Stanage said in the release.

OPM Chairman and CEO Scott DeFelice added in the release that the partnership “will help enable us to further expand production capacity to meet rapidly growing market demand for our Oxfab technology.”

In addition to aerospace, OPM sells into biomedical and industrial markets. Officials said that OPM is the only firm making 3-D printed parts based on polyetherketoneketone resin.

Hexcel posted sales of almost $ 1.9 billion in 2015, with almost 70 percent of that amount coming from aerospace. The firm in April broke ground on a new production plant in Morocco.