General Development of Business
Hexcel Corporation, founded in 1946, was incorporated in California in 1948, and reincorporated in Delaware in 1983. Hexcel Corporation and its subsidiaries (herein referred to as “Hexcel”, “the Company”, “we”, “us”, or “our”), is a leading advanced composites company. We develop, manufacture, and market lightweight, high-performance composites, including carbon fibers, reinforcements, prepregs, honeycomb, matrix systems, adhesives and composite structures, for use in Commercial Aerospace, Space & Defense and Industrial Applications. Our products are used in a wide variety of end applications, such as commercial and military aircraft, space launch vehicles and satellites, wind turbine blades, automotive, bikes, skis and a wide variety of recreational products and other industrial applications.
We serve international markets through manufacturing facilities, sales offices and representatives located in the Americas, Asia Pacific and Europe. We are also an investor in a joint venture in Malaysia, which manufactures composite structures for Commercial Aerospace applications.
Narrative Description of Business and Segments
We are a manufacturer of products within a single industry: Advanced Composites. Hexcel has two segments, Composite Materials and Engineered Products. The Composite Materials segment is comprised of our carbon fiber, reinforcements for composites, honeycomb core and matrix product lines. The Engineered Products segment is comprised of lightweight high strength composite structures and specially machined honeycomb product lines.
The following summaries describe the ongoing activities related to the Composite Materials and Engineered Products segments as of December 31, 2010.
The Composite Materials segment manufactures and markets carbon fibers, fabrics and specialty reinforcements, prepregs, structural adhesives, honeycomb, composite panels, molding compounds, polyurethane systems and laminates that are incorporated into many applications, including military and commercial aircraft, wind turbine blades, recreational products and other industrial applications.