Scottish engineering firm MB Aerospace has signed a $1 billion deal with US firm Pratt & Whitney, in what its CEO has called a “milestone opportunity” for the firm.

The ten-year agreement is to provide flight engine parts to the US company, which is a division of United Technologies Corporation.

MB Aerospace said it would recruit 160 new staff as part of the agreement, on top of the 1,600 people it already employs across the UK, the US and Poland.

Chief executive Craig Gallagher said: “We are hugely respectful of the trust placed in us by United Technologies and Pratt & Whitney to support their programs.

“MB Aerospace and UTC already possess a strong working relationship across Pratt & Whitney’s installed base programs, and this contract represents a milestone opportunity for our world class teams to support UTC.

“The MB Aerospace group has already invested more than $50m in machining technology, facilities expansion and in the last year has recruited an additional 100 new full-time employees in support of this growth and ahead of the agreement of this exciting contract.”

A majority stake in the Motherwell-based firm was taken by Blackstone private equity in 2013. MB Aerospace concluded a series of deals over 2016, including the acquisitions of a Polish coatings firm, a Devon-based factory and US firm Norbert Industries.