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Defence group Chemring today spent £80 million buying a US engineer specialising in the controlled explosions used during space missions.
Hi-Shear's pyrotechnics are used for functions such as creating the small blast that separates spent fuel tanks from rockets and blowing off the canopy of a fighter plane before firing an ejector seat.
The business will be put into Chemring's energetics division - most easily described by insiders as "anything that goes fizz, bang or whoosh".
Chemring said Hi-Shear would position the company to benefit from the development of the next generation of Patriot-3 anti-ballistic missiles.
Chief executive David Price said at the start of the year that takeover deals were unlikely because sellers were still pricing their companies too highly but revised his view in May when he predicted deals in the pipeline. Today's is the first such deal.
Last year the group spent about £100 million on four takeovers, and the Hi-Shear deal is not likely to be the last of 2009.
Price used a new banking facility from Lloyds to fund the takeover.
