$8 million winglets deal takes flight for LMI At a meeting Wednesday, the St. Charles firm's CEO also discusses plans for a fairly big acquisition.

Making planes more fuel-efficient is big business these days, and LMI Aerospace is getting in on the action.

The St. Charles-based aerospace supplier has reached an $8 million deal with Aviation Partners Boeing to help build winglets for Boeing 767s, LMI Chief Executive Ronald Saks said Wednesday.

The company recently signed a memorandum of understanding to build frames for 100 winglets, and it's negotiating options to build 200 more, Saks said.

The 11-foot-tall, curved wingtips reduce drag, cutting fuel costs by 4 or 5 percent over traditional wings, according to Aviation Partners Boeing, a joint venture between Aviation Partners Inc. and Boeing Co.

They are installed on many new commercial planes and are increasingly being retrofitted onto existing planes. In April, American Airlines announced it will replace the wingtips on its 58-plane fleet of 767s, and it expects each plane will save at least 290,000 gallons of fuel a year.

LMI will start the work in October 2008, and it will run through 2009, Saks said. It already does winglet work for 737s and 757s, and by the time this contract is up and running, Saks expects winglets will bring $15 million a year for LMI, more than 10 percent of its current revenue.

He made the announcement at LMI's annual shareholders meeting Wednesday at the Embassy Suites Hotel in St. Charles.

Saks also discussed LMI's plans to make a fairly big acquisition in the next few months. It is eyeing smaller companies that can design and build parts for new planes, instead of just filling parts orders.

"What we want to do is be involved in the front-end design of these aircraft," Saks said in an interview. "Then work on design-build for the life of the project."

LMI, which reported $123 million in revenue last year, wants to acquire a company with at least $50 million a year in revenue, Saks said.

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