UK's Goodwin in $1.5 billion deal talks with Cerberus to sell some defence assets

Sept 9 (Reuters) - Britain's Goodwin said on Wednesday it was in advanced talks with U.S.-based private equity firm Cerberus Capital to sell parts of a division that houses its defence assets for £1.1 billion ($1.49 billion). 

Shares in the London-listed engineering company, which dropped 23% on Tuesday after the Financial Times first reported the deal talks, climbed as much as 10% to 16,980 pence on Wednesday.

The deal covers a substantial part of Goodwin's Mechanical Engineering division, which includes Goodwin Steel Castings, Goodwin International, Noreva, Easat Group and Pumps. 

The unit makes components for UK and U.S. naval ship and submarine programmes.

($1 = 0.7376 pounds)

(Reporting by Nithyashree R B in Bengaluru; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips and Mrigank Dhaniwala)