Rolls-Royce Group PLC History

Company Perspectives:

Rolls-Royce is a world leading power systems business, meeting the needs of customers, shareholders and employees for the next century. We provide cost-effectively engineered products and services to commercial and military customers in propulsion, electrical power and materials handling markets around the world. Customers from the world's leading airlines to executive jet operators rely on our powerful range of commercial aero engines and global support network. Military customers benefit from engines for helicopters, fast jets, trainers and transport aircraft, as well as naval vessels. We provide power utilities and independent operators with innovative solutions to their electrical generation, transmission and distribution needs and serve customers in industrial, marine and nuclear engineering markets.

Key Dates:

1884:

Frederick Henry Royce founds F.H. Royce and Company in Manchester, England.

1904:

Royce builds his first automobile, and reaches a sales agreement with Charles Stewart Rolls to sell "Rolls-Royce" cars.

1915:

The company begins production of aircraft engines.

1931:

The company acquires Bentley Motor Ltd.

1940:

The gas turbine aircraft engine is developed.

1966:

The rival British aircraft maker Bristol-Siddley Engines is acquired.

1971:

Facing bankruptcy, Rolls-Royce is nationalized by the British government; the automotive division is split off and later acquired by Vickers PLC.

1987:

Rolls-Royce is privatized with a listing on the London Stock Exchange.

1989:

The company acquires Northern Engineering Industries, which produces industrial power plants, as part of a diversification effort; the first in the Trent engine series for widebody planes is launched.

1992:

The company launches a restructuring effort, cutting 20,000 jobs over four years.

1995:

The company acquires Allison Engine Company in the United States in order to establish a U.S. presence.

1999:

The company acquires National Airmotive, in California, boosting its services division to 50 percent of revenues; Vickers PLC (minus the Rolls-Royce car division, sold to Volkswagen) is acquired and becomes the world's leading marine power system producer.

2004:

The company wins a $1 billion order from All Nippon Airways in Japan and a $450 million order from China Eastern Airlines.

Company History:

Rolls-Royce Group PLC is flying high in the 2000s. The London-based company, most famously linked to its former luxury car division, is one of the world's top manufacturers of high-power gas turbine engines for the aviation industry. Rolls-Royce has gained prominence in this cutthroat global market through its development of proprietary technology that allows a single-engine model to be adapted in order to build more powerful, and more economical, aircraft engines. The company's early 21st century engine designs, led by the Trent 900 and the Trent 1000, launched in 2003, are expected to take the company to the number one spot in the industry. The company has seen especially strong sales in the Asian market, including a $1 billion order from Japan's All Nippon Airways and a $450 million order from China Eastern Airlines in October 2004. Altogether, Rolls-Royce counts some 500 airlines, 4,000 corporate and utility aircraft and helicopter operators, more than 200 armed forces and navies, and more than 2,000 marine clients among its customers. With an installed base of nearly 55,000 engines, Rolls-Royce's maintenance and repair services accounts for some 50 percent of the group's nearly £6 billion ($11 billion) revenues in 2003. Rolls-Royce also has successfully balanced its operations in the cyclical aerospace market with the development of its industrial power division, which represents about 40 percent of the company's sales. Rolls-Royce is listed on the London Stock Exchange.

Late 19th-Century Origins

The origins of Rolls-Royce date back to its founder, Sir Frederick Henry Royce, born in March 1863 in Lincolnshire, England. His rags to riches story began when as a youth he went to London to sell newspapers for W.H. Smith on a street corner. In 1872, the year of his father's death, young Henry found himself in financial straits and augmented his newspaper selling job with work as a telegraph messenger. Five years later Royce got a job as an apprentice in a railway works near Peterborough, where he learned the basics of modern engineering. In 1880, he graduated to becoming a tester with the Electric Light and Power Company in London, and he studied the principles of electrical engineering in his spare time. In 1884 Royce and his friend Ernest Claremont began a small electrical and mechanical engineering workshop, F.H. Royce and Company, on Cooke Street in Manchester.

Business was slow and difficult at first, but before long the company became known for its electrical dynamos and cranes. Sales rose from £6,000 in 1897 to £20,000 in 1899. That year, the company's name was changed to the Royce Company, and its capital base was increased to £30,000 to finance a new factory at Trafford Park, Manchester.

By 1902, Britain's nascent motorcar industry caught the industrious Royce's eye. He bought a secondhand French Decauville, stripped it down to its parts, and studied the vehicle. Applying what would now be called "reverse engineering," he set about building his own auto based on the Decauville. The result was a two-cylinder, ten-horsepower model not much different from the French original. The first model produced from the Cooke Street works emerged in 1904, in time to catch interest from another Decauville enthusiast of the day, Charles Rolls.

Born in 1877, Charles Stewart Rolls came from a far more privileged background than Royce. After studying at Eton and Cambridge, he traveled around the Continent in the early 1890s, developing an interest in the motor car, which was then becoming popular in France. Once back in Britain, Rolls became a motorcar dealer in 1903. He sold mostly continental models, but with his dealership in fashionable Brook Street, London, and a repair shop in nearby Fulham, Rolls soon came to know the British car market well.

Forming Rolls-Royce in 1904

Rolls's interest in becoming a dealer of British automobiles led him to Royce's new line. The two men met, and a deal was finally struck for C.S. Rolls and Co. to become the exclusive dealer for Royce. Their December 23, 1904 agreement stipulated all cars sold by their arrangement were to be called "Rolls-Royce." Four models went into production: the twin-cylinder, ten-horsepower; the three-cylinder, 15-horsepower; the four-cylinder, 20-horsepower; and the six-cylinder, 30-horsepower. All the vehicle engines shared a series of parts--pistons and rings, valves, connecting rods, springs and bearings, among others.

In 1905, the first year of production, Rolls-Royce's four types of vehicles ranged in price from £395 to £890 and, therefore, were purchased only by the wealthy. Expansion of the motorcar market at this time tended to focus on innovations in engine design. In 1905, Rolls-Royce introduced its eight-cylinder, V8 engine, regarded by motoring enthusiasts as innovative for the smoother, quieter ride it allowed.

In 1906 Rolls-Royce introduced the 40/50 model, or the Silver Ghost, named for its metallic appearance and its engine that was "quiet as a ghost." Some British journalists called it "the best car in the world." Orders for this and earlier models climbed steadily that year, and this brought about the expansion of the company to a new factory in Derby. To fund the new plant, a subscription of new shares worth £100,000 was offered on the stock market in December 1906 under a new name: Rolls-Royce Limited. The subscription named Royce as chief engineer and works director, and Rolls as technical managing director. Ernest Claremont was appointed to chair the company.

The Derby factory opened on July 9, 1908, amid much pageantry. Proof that the new Silver Ghost was to be a success came in 1911 when the Indian government ordered eight new models for use by King George V and his entourage during the Delhi Durbar that year.

Around this time, Rolls began to distance himself from the car company as both his fame and outside interests grew. He resigned as technical managing director and became a consultant to Rolls-Royce in April 1910. Three months later, Rolls was tragically killed when his Wright biplane crashed. As a symbol of mourning, the intertwined "RR" logo on the Rolls-Royce radiator plate was changed from red to black. Soon thereafter the workaholic Royce fell seriously ill from exhaustion, and he spent much of 1912 convalescing. In time, Royce took a home in the south of France and reduced his shop floor work--but not his design contributions--to conserve his health.

Expansion into Aircraft Engines During World War I

Day-to-day responsibility of Rolls-Royce Limited then passed to Claude Johnson, who reaffirmed the longtime company commitment to producing and perfecting one model. For a company building luxury cars, the benefits of military procurement beginning at the outbreak of World War I were not immediately apparent. But, in 1914, Rolls-Royce found itself in demand to produce chassis for armored fighting vehicles, and Rolls-Royce cars soon became widely used as staff cars for the British Army.

During this time Rolls-Royce also was called upon to design aircraft engines to help with the war effort. The company's association with aviation propulsion had begun earlier. In fact, the original 1906 agreement between Rolls and Royce had mentioned in the first paragraph that the company had a wide mandate to provide propulsion on land, at sea, and in the air. Furthermore, Royce had served as a consultant to the Royal Aircraft Factory at Farnborough. Outside of this early interest in aviation, however, which Royce shared with Rolls, actual production of aero engines did not begin until the onset of World War I.

In early 1915, Royce led a team of engineers in working out a design. Within three days of the war's outbreak, Royce was poring over plans for a 200-horsepower aero engine. Some of the technology--crankshaft, connecting rods, geartrains--were borrowed from the Silver Ghost motorcar engine. But more pistons were required--12 in all. Thus was born the 60 degree V12 engine that became the prototype for all machinery produced by Rolls-Royce after 1918.

Testing of a 225-horsepower aero engine had begun at Derby. By 1916, the engine went into production. It was named the Eagle and was put into wartime service beginning in 1916 at 250 horsepower in size. By 1918, the Mark VIII form had risen in size to 365 horsepower. Two other engines, the Hawk and the Falcon, had been designed by Royce from his home in the south of France and relayed to his production team in Derby for manufacture. In total, 5,000 Rolls-Royce aero engines were made during World War I, accounting for nearly half the air horsepower used by Allied forces. By the late 1920s, the company derived more profit from the manufacture of aero engines than it did from making cars.

Producing aero engines also had applications for developing motorcar engines. In 1924, for example, Rolls-Royce introduced front wheel brakes to its cars, as well as power assistance through a gearbox driven servo. The interwar years also signaled a departure from the company's practice of producing only one car model. In 1922, the 3.5-liter, 20-horsepower model was introduced. In 1925, the "New Phantom" succeeded the Silver Ghost. Although its larger seven-liter engine had overhead valves rather than side valves, the chassis and the running gear were the same as those used on the Silver Ghost.

Over the next ten years, Rolls-Royce continued to manufacture automobiles for an increasingly exclusive and wealthy clientele. In 1931, the company purchased Bentley Motor Ltd., a consistently undercapitalized English manufacturer of high-performance automobiles. Royce, who was conferred a baronetcy in 1930, died in 1933.

Just before the outbreak of World War II, the Phantom II was replaced by the Phantom III. The new model was driven by a V12 engine, the most powerful yet. Without Royce to oversee its introduction, however, the Phantom III production had been expensive. This led in 1937 to the company's consideration of rationalizing its design and production facilities to contain expanding operating costs.

Aircraft Engines Driving Growth During World War II

Before his death in 1933, Royce had set about designing a new generation of aero engines that surpassed 1,000 horsepower in size. The result was the PV12, a 27-liter engine eventually named the Merlin. The Merlin was first used by the Royal Air Force in 1937. Two years later, the aero engine could maintain 1,000 horsepower to 16,000 feet. Impressed with its design and output, the Royal Air Force agreed to help fund the development of three fighter planes designed around the Merlin--the Fairey Battle Bomber, the Hurricane, and the Spitfire. All performed with memorable accuracy in the famed Battle of Britain during World War II. Innovations to the engine during this time ensured it could attain 1,000 horsepower at more than twice the original altitude, 47,000 by the war's end. Activity during World War II had greatly expanded Rolls-Royce. Factories at Crewe and Glasgow, Scotland, had been opened. By 1945, the company employed significantly more than 50,000 people.

Ernest Hives, who served as CEO of Rolls-Royce from 1936 to 1957, decided in 1945 that the future of the company lay in continuing to produce aero engines. He guided the company's conversion from piston turbine engines to the new gas turbine engine designed by Stanley Hooker and Frank Whittle in 1940. Car production was moved from Derby to Crewe so that the Derby facilities could work almost exclusively on developing the gas turbine aero engine for the civil aviation industry.

An early customer of the Merlin engine was the Canadair DC4M, a Canadian-built aircraft. The introduction of a military engine in a civil aircraft took some tinkering before it was done successfully. Rolls-Royce used its experience to judge just how different commercial engine expectations were from military ones. In 1953, Rolls-Royce introduced the Dart propjet engine for the Vickers Viscount. This new engine had a centrifugal design and had taken over from the Merlin 60 series of engines. The last Dart engine was built in 1986, ending nearly 40 years of production.

Rolls-Royce also introduced the turbojet engine in the form of the AJ65 model, or the Avon, which powered the world's first commercial jetliner, de Havilland's Comet, as well as the Canberra, Hunter, and Lightning. The company's second wholly civil aero engine was the RB141, or Medway, launched in 1959. It served the BEA and BOAC airlines for a few years before it was replaced by the Spey, a smaller version. Aside from being used in the BAC One Eleven, Fokker F28, and Gulfstream II and III, the Spey made its way across the Atlantic into the American LTV A7 military aircraft.

Competition and Nationalization: 1960-70s

Hives was succeeded by Sir Denning Pearson in the late 1950s. Pearson was determined to penetrate the important American airliner market, but was rebuffed by fierce competition from Pratt & Whitney and General Electric (GE). In 1966 Rolls-Royce effectively consolidated the British aircraft engine industry with the acquisition of its top domestic rival, Bristol-Siddley Engines. Two years later, the company won a key order from Lockheed to build an engine for the TriStar plane. Although the contract seemed a major coup at the time, development of this powerful new engine, dubbed the RB211, consumed far more time and money than Rolls-Royce had anticipated--so much so that in February 1971 the company faced bankruptcy and was subsequently nationalized by the British government. To reduce costs, the company spun off its carmaking division into a separate company, Rolls-Royce Motor Cars Ltd., which eventually became a subsidiary of Vickers PLC. Both companies continued to use the Rolls-Royce name and the distinctive RR symbol.

At the same time, development of the RB211 engine under the engineering leadership of Sir Stanley Hooker continued apace. By 1972, the RB211 went into production for use in the TriStar aircraft. Although it had been costly to develop, it was very adaptable and modified for uses large and (relatively) small. In 1987, Rolls-Royce announced that 75 percent of customers for the new Boeing 757 airliner had chosen the RB211 engines for propulsion. The RB211 was even used in landbased and off-shore installations, mainly by the oil and natural gas industries in drilling operations. On the military engine side of operations, Rolls-Royce took part in the three-nation Turbo-Union RB199 engine development for the Tornado aircraft during the mid-1980s. The company also provided Pegasus vectored-thrust engines for the British V-Stol Harrier aircraft, used primarily by the Royal Air Force.

Under the chairmanship of Frank Tombs from 1985 until 1992, Rolls-Royce reemerged on the London Stock Exchange in May 1987, securing more than two million shareholders in the process. Many were from overseas, primarily Americans. By the end of 1988, a more hopeful business climate produced an order book for Rolls-Royce of £4.1 billion, compared with the £2.7 billion a year earlier. Sales for the company were slightly down, however, on 1987 figures, as were the operating profits, at £333 million.

In 1988, the company launched the RB211-524L civil turbofan engine. In addition, Rolls-Royce signed an agreement to provide the European Fighter Aircraft, a three-member European military production project, with the EJ200 engine. The company had a 33 percent stake in the project.

After its refloatation, Rolls-Royce set about diversifying away from its sole emphasis on aero engines. To that end, in May 1989, the company merged with Northern Engineering Industries PLC (NEI), which designed and constructed capital plant and equipment, particularly for the power generation industry. That year Frank Turner, director of civil engineers at Rolls-Royce, welcomed the diversification, which ensured the company would now derive 35 percent of its sales from non-aero engine business. He commented: "Through the sixteen years of state ownership, we were constrained ... in obtaining approval for anything new. In effect, our gun arm was strapped. We found ourselves only able to react to the initiatives of our competitors, and then only when it was very late in the day."

The company announced in 1989 the formation of a joint venture between NEI and Asea Brown Boveri, the Swiss-based engineering group. The venture, NEI ABB Gas Turbines Ltd., was to be based in Newcastle in northern England. In the same year, Rolls-Royce introduced a new incarnation of the RB211 dubbed the Trent engine, to carry it into the new decade. The Trent helped Rolls-Royce capture important orders for wide-body aircraft, such as the McDonnell Douglas-11 and the Airbus 330. Boeing subsequently announced that it would carry the Trent engines on its 767-X aircraft.

Early 1990s Recession Driving Reorganization

A stunning array of problems greeted Rolls-Royce and its rivals in the 1990s. The disruption of the global airline industry from the Persian Gulf conflict battered the airline industry and its suppliers in the early 1990s. Due to an embargo, NEI had to postpone the sale of four steam-turbine generators to the aggressor, Iraq. With a deepening global recession came reduced air travel. Loss-plagued civil airlines cautiously postponed or canceled new plane orders, forcing the three largest aerospace engine manufacturers into what one analyst called "suicidal price competition." Once the Gulf War was settled, leading nations around the world resumed downsizing their military budgets, slashing new aircraft orders. Sales for Rolls-Royce in 1991 fell 4 percent to £3.51, and pretax profits fell more sharply to £51 million, compared with £176 million a year earlier.

Better times appeared to be on Rolls-Royce's horizon, however, as the company's order book rose to record levels on the success of its Trent engine. In fact, the company's share of the civil aviation market had grown from 10 percent at the time of its refloatation in 1987 to 23 percent at the beginning of 1993. That same year, the company opened what it claimed was the world's largest airline engine testing facility, a £20 million ($30 million) test cell that was as big as a soccer field.

Sir Ralph Robins, who capped a lifetime career at Rolls-Royce with his advancement from CEO to chairman in 1992, realized that the company would not simply grow its way out of the industrywide crisis. He continued a reorganization set in motion by his predecessor, targeting across-the-board cost cuts. The company reduced development time by involving design and production engineers in the entire process and embarked on strategic joint ventures to pare research and development costs. The employee rolls received the most drastic surgery; the workforce was cut by more than one-third, from nearly 65,000 in 1989 to 42,600 by the end of 1996.

Robins's strategies for winning increased market share--and with it sales and profits--included emphases on the aftermarket segment, the fast-growing Asia-Pacific market, and the new class of super jumbo jets. Since price competition among the big-three aero engine makers had slashed that segment's profitability, Rolls-Royce focused on providing higher-margin parts and service to the world's airlines, hoping to double that business by the turn of the 21st century. Emphasis on sales to Asian airlines paid off handsomely; by the mid-1990s, the company had captured one-third of China's aero engine orders. Its Trent 800 became the engine of choice for Boeing 777s sold to Southeast Asian airlines, giving it a 32 percent share of the market for powering that model worldwide. The $525 million acquisition of U.S.-based Allison Engine Company boosted Rolls-Royce's presence in that still vital market, prompting the parent company to expect a $1.5 billion contract to retrofit U,S, Air Force B52s.

The company's £400 million investment in the next-generation Trent mega-thrust engines (80,000 pounds and up) also proved sound. Rolls-Royce emerged with the industry's lightest, most fuel-efficient engine made for the super jumbo jets being designed by Boeing Co. These massive planes were expected to ferry up to 550 passengers as far as 10,000 miles at a stretch. Rolls-Royce hoped to power 50 percent of the 1,200 of these giant planes projected to be built by the middle of the 2010s.

Following a pretax loss of £184 million on revenues of £3.6 billion in 1992, revenues rose slightly, to £3.6 billion in 1995, but the company achieved a pretax profit of £175 million. Results for 1996 were adversely affected by the company's decision to divest its steam power generation interests; costs related to the sale pushed Rolls-Royce to a pretax loss of £28 million, but Sir Robins noted that ongoing holdings chalked up an operating profit of £242 million on the year. Despite the less-than-stellar bottom-line results, top executives were upbeat about the company's future prospects. Robins was expected to retire in 1998 and be succeeded by CEO John Rose.

21st-Century Leader

In the late 1990s, Rolls-Royce's more powerful, more economic aircraft engines were winning an increasing share of the global market. By the early 2000s, the company was able to boast of a market share approaching 25 percent. The company's ability to adapt its single Trent engine platform gave it a distinct advantage over competitors such as GE, which took the far more costly approach of designing new engines from scratch. Rolls-Royce's engines were also smaller and more fuel-efficient, and quickly became the engine of choice in the emerging new market for large-capacity aircraft.

Providing maintenance and repair services to the more than 54,000 Rolls-Royce aircraft engines on the market became a particularly important source of revenue for the company in the 2000s. Airlines increasingly sought to outsource their service and repair operations, and Rolls-Royce responded by expanding its capacity in this area. As part of that effort, the company acquired National Airmotive, based in California, one of the region's largest aircraft and overhaul providers. Rolls-Royce Engine Services, as the services division was called, rose to represent nearly 50 percent of the group's revenues by 2004.

Rolls-Royce also boosted its non-aircraft divisions at the end of the 20th century. In 1999 the company made two important acquisitions. The first came with the purchase of full control of its joint venture with Cooper Energy Services, boosting the company's industrial power operations with the venture's rotating compression equipment. The second came with the purchase of Vickers PLC, which had sold off the Rolls-Royce car division to Volkswagen in 1998, while the Rolls-Royce brand was transferred to BMW. The acquisition of Vickers transformed Rolls-Royce into a world leader in the production of marine gas turbine and other power systems.

By 2004, Rolls-Royce appeared set to take the number one spot in the global aircraft engine industry. The company's clear technology advantage had enabled it to outpace its rivals, in particular the joint venture between the United States' GE and Pratt & Whitney.

The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States played a role in Rolls-Royce's success. As the aircraft markets in North America and Europe slumped--with thousands of aircraft remaining grounded into the mid-2000s--the Asian markets were taking off. With economies rising, and the need to transport a population numbering in the billions, the aircraft industry's hopes turned to this part of the world. The arrival of new and large aircraft, such as the Boeing 777, and the development of still larger aircraft, such as the massive Airbus 380-800, stimulated a demand for more powerful, yet more fuel-efficient, engines.

Rolls-Royce's technology advantage helped it to secure an increasing number of contracts in the Asian region. The launch of a new generation of Trent engines, the Trent 900 and Trent 1000, helped the company win a number of high-profile orders. In October 2004 alone, the group scored a contract to supply 50 engines to Japan's All Nippon Airways, worth $1 billion, and a second contract, worth $450 million, to supply China Eastern Airlines, that country's third largest airline. With an order book worth some £19 billion ($31 billion), Rolls-Royce soared into the new century.

Principal Subsidiaries: Rolls E.L. Turbofans Limited; Rolls-Royce Aero Engine Services Limited; Rolls-Royce Commercial Aero Engines Limited; Rolls-Royce Engine Controls Limited; Rolls-Royce International Support Services Limited; Rolls-Royce Military Aero Engines Limited; Sawley Packaging Company Limited; Allen Power Engineering Limited; Clarke Chapman Limited; Cochran Boilers Limited; International Combustion Limited; NEI Brantford International Limited (51%); NEI Overseas Holdings Limited; Parsons Power Generation Systems Limited; Peebles Electric Limited; Reyrolle Limited; Reyrolle Projects Limited; Rolls-Royce and Associates Limited; Rolls-Royce Industrial & Marie Gas Turbines Limited; Rolls-Royce Industrial & Marine Power Limited; Rolls-Royce Industrial Power (India) Limited; Rolls-Royce Industrial Power (Overseas Projects) Limited; Rolls-Royce Industrial Power Systems Limited; Rolls-Royce Materials Handling Limited; Rolls-Royce Nuclear Engineering Limited; Rolls-Royce Nuclear Engineering Services Limited; Rolls-Royce Power Engineering PLC; Rolls-Royce Power Generation Limited; Rolls-Royce Transmission & Distribution Limited; R-R Industrial Controls Limited; Thompson Kennicott Limited; Middle East Equity Partners Limited; Rolls-Royce & Partners Finance Limited; Rolls-Royce Capital Limited; Rolls-Royce International Limited; Rolls-Royce Leasing Limited; Rolls-Royce Overseas Holdings Limited; RRPF Engine Leasing Limited; RRPF Engine Leasing (No. 2) Limited; Motores Rolls-Royce Limitada (Brazil); Rolls-Royce Technical Support SARL (France); Allison Engine Company, Inc. (U.S.A.); Rolls-Royce Industrial Power (Pacific) Limited (Australia); Bristol Aerospace Limited (Canada); Ferranti-Packard Transformers Limited (Canada); Parsons Turbine Generators Canada Limited (Canada); Rolls-Royce Canada Limited; Rolls-Royce Gas Turbines Engines (Canada) Inc.; Rolls-Royce Holdings Canada Inc.; Rolls-Royce Industries Canada Inc.; Fushun & Reyrolle Bushing Co. Limited (China; 50.4%); Caillard S.A. (France); Ferranti-Packard de Mexico S.A. de C.V.; Rolls-Royce Industrial Power (New Zealand) Limited; NEI Africa Holdings Limited (South Africa; 60.33%); Northern Engineering Industries Africa Limited (South Africa; 56.36%); Rolls-Royce Industrial & Marine Power Inc. (U.S.A.); Cutler Hammer Zambia Limited; NEI Zambia Limited; NEI Holdings Zimbabwe (Private) Limited; Rolls-Royce of Australia Pty. Limited; Nightingale Insurance Limited; Rolls-Royce & Partners Finance (Netherlands) B.V.; Rolls-Royce International Turbines (Saudi Arabia) Limited (51%); Rolls-Royce North America Inc. (U.S.A.); Rolls-Royce Inc. (U.S.A.); Rolls-Royce Capital Inc. (U.S.A.); Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Limited (50%); Rolls Smiths Engine Controls Limited (50%); Turbo-Union Limited (40%); Clarke Chapman Portia Port Services Limited (50%); Cooper Rolls Limited (50%); Derby Cogeneration Limited (50%); Rolls Laval Heat Exchangers Limited (50%); Rolls Wood Group (Repair & Overhauls) Limited (50%); Viking Power Limited (50%); Xian XR Aero Components Co Limited (China; 49%); BMW Rolls-Royce GmbH (Germany; 49.5%); EUROJET Turbo GmbH (Germany; 33%); MTU, Turbomeca, Rolls-Royce GmbH (Germany; 33.3%); Hong Kong Aero Engine Services Limited (50%); Industria de Turbo Propulsores S.A. (Spain; 45%); IAE International Aero Engines AG (Switzerland; 30%); Williams-Rolls Inc. (U.S.A.; 15%); Cooper, Rolls Corporation (Canada; 50%); Bellis India Limited (40%); Easun Reyrolle Relays and Devices Limited (India; 25%); RPG-RR Power Engineering Private Limited (India; 50%); EPE Reyrolle (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd. (50%); Cooper Rolls Incorporated (U.S.A.; 50%); Sama Leasing Company Limited (Cayman Islands; 50%); RS Leasing Limited (50%); Aircraft Financing and Trading Holdings B.V. (Netherlands; 50%); Middle East Propulsion Company Limited (Saudi Arabia; 16.6%); R-H Component Technologies, L.C. (U.S.A.; 50%).

Principal Competitors: Aviation Industries Corporation of China I; Siemens AG; Siemens Westinghouse Power Corp.; Shenyang Liming Aero-Engine Group Corp.; General Electric Co. Power Systems; Dresser-Rand Co.; MAN AG; Solar Turbines Inc.; Harbin Steam Turbine Factory; Ingersoll-Rand Company Ltd.; Porsche Holding Ges GmbH.

Further Reading:

• Bangsberg, P.T., "Rolls-Royce Gearing Up to Sell More Aircraft Engines to China," Journal of Commerce and Commercial, November 18, 1993, p. 3B.
• Banks, Howard, "Rolls on a Roll," Forbes, October 7, 1996, pp. 118-19.
• Bird, Anthony, and Ian Hallows, The Rolls Royce Motor Car, London: B.T. Batsford Ltd., 1972.
• Cavendish, Richard, "The Birth of Rolls Royce," History Today, May 2004, p. 60.
• "Fighting the Flab: Rolls-Royce," Economist, April 3, 1993, pp. 58-59.
• Flint, Perry, "No More 'Three On A Wing,'" Air Transport World, August 1996, pp. 58-62.
• Foster, Geoffrey, "Three Over Thirty," Management Today, May 1996, pp. 64-66.
• Gray, Robert, Rolls on the Rocks: The History of Rolls-Royce, Salisbury, England: Compton Press Ltd., 1971.
• Gunston, Bill, Rolls-Royce Aero Engines, Wellingborough, England: Patrick Stephens, 1989.
• Hodson, Roy, "The Eligible Engineer," International Management, February 1992, pp. 30-32.
• House, Richard, "Sir Ralph Robins of Rolls-Royce: An Astonishing Turn of Speed," Institutional Investor, July 1996, pp. 23-24.
• Jamaluddin Muhammad, "Rolls-Royce Stamps Its Power on Land, Air and Sea," Bernama: The Malaysian News Agency, July 5, 2004.
• Johnson, Claude Goodman, The Early History of Motoring, London: Burrow, n.d.
• Kay, William, "On a Rolls," Barron's, July 16, 1990, pp. 18-19.
• "Knocking Engineers into New Shape," Economist, April 15, 1989, pp. 67-68.
• Kositchotethana, Boonsong, "Rolls-Royce Looks to Soar with Asia-Pacific," Bangkok Post, March 3, 2003.
• Lloyd, R. Ian, Rolls-Royce, The Years of Endeavour, London: Macmillan Press, 1978.
• Morgan, Bryan, The Rolls-Royce Story, London: Collins, 1971.
• Reed, Arthur, "Rolls's Post-Trent Planning," Air Transport World, November 1993, pp. 83-84.
• Robotham, William Arthur, Silver Ghosts & Silver Dawn, London: Constable, 1970.
• Rowland, John, The Rolls-Royce Men: The Story of Charles Rolls and Henry Royce, London: Lutterworth Press, 1969.
• Sezer, Murad, "ANA Picks Rolls-Royce Engines for 50 Boeing 7E7 Planes," CBS Marketwatch, October 13, 2004.
• Smart, Tim, "Clash of the Flying Titans," Business Week, November 22, 1993, pp. 64-66.
• Verchere, Ian, "Rolls-Royce Runs Leaner and Meaner," Interavia, January 1992, pp. 33-37.

Source: International Directory of Company Histories, Vol.67. St. James Press, 2005.