Bombardier is seeking investors for its aerospace businesses and considering a sale of some operations, people familiar with the matter said, as a turnaround plan at the Canadian plane maker faces pressure from potentially crippling US tariffs on its marquee jetliner.
The Montreal-based manufacturer is studying the disposal of assets including its Q400 turboprop and CRJ regional-jet unit, said the people, who asked not to be identified. Airbus is among the suitors, they said, with one person saying Bombardier is also open to partnerships with other aerospace companies.
Asset sales or investment deals in aerospace would raise money for Bombardier as it contends with newly imposed import duties of 300 per cent on its C Series jetliner in the US, the world’s biggest aviation market. Bombardier also missed out on a merger of its rail-equipment business with Siemens’ operation after months of talks. Deals on the Q400 or CRJ may add life to languishing products, an analyst said.
“Bombardier has neglected these products for so long,” said Richard Aboulafia, an aerospace consultant at Teal Group who added that the Q400 may have an easier time finding a buyer than the CRJ line. “These should be worth more and should be more desirable.”
The Q400 competes with planes made by ATR, which is owned by Airbus and Leonardo. Bombardier’s regional jets go head to head with aircraft built by Brazil’s Embraer.
Bombardier and Airbus, whose earlier talks on a potential business collaboration fizzled in 2015, declined to comment. No final decisions have been made and Bombardier deliberations with potential partners may not lead to any transactions, the people said.
The Bombardier chief executive Alain Bellemare is trying to stop a cash drain after the C Series came to market more than two years behind schedule and about US$2bn over budget. The delays and cost overruns prompted Bombardier to accept a $1bn investment from Quebec in the C Series programme, plus another $300 million from Canada. The company’s Global 7000 business jet has also been delayed.
The US commerce department recently imposed 300 per cent tariffs against the C Series, saying Bombardier sold the narrow-body plane at less than its fair-market value after receiving government subsidies in Canada. The agency’s decision followed a complaint by Boeing after Bombardier sold at least 75 of its planes to Delta Air Lines, a deal valued at more than $5bn based on list prices.
Bombardier’s shares closed at C$2.32 on October 13 and have risen 6.9 per cent this year. The company got about 57 per cent of its revenue from aircraft and aerospace parts last year.
In 2015, Bombardier sold a stake in its rail business to Caisse de Depot et Placement du Quebec, Canada’s second-largest pension fund manager, for $1.5bn. Last month, Siemens chose France’s Alstom as its merger partner in rail equipment.
Mr Bellemare has long talked about the need for Bombardier to improve margins of the Q400, which has lost market share in recent years to lighter, cheaper turboprops made by ATR. Bombardier is looking to move production of wings and cockpits for the Q400 outside Canada to reduce costs, vice president Todd Young said last month at a press briefing in Mirabel, Quebec.
Colin Bole, a senior vice president of sales at Bombardier’s commercial aircraft unit, said at the same press briefing that the company has “a tremendous number of Q400 campaigns in the pipeline globally and we certainly intend to crystallize those in the next few months”.
“I think you will see a dramatic change in the backlog,” Mr Bole said.
Company%20Profile
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
The biog
Prefers vegetables and fish to meat and would choose salad over pizza
Walks daily as part of regular exercise routine
France is her favourite country to visit
Has written books and manuals on women’s education, first aid and health for the family
Family: Husband, three sons and a daughter
Fathiya Nadhari's instructions to her children was to give back to the country
The children worked as young volunteers in social, education and health campaigns
Her motto is to never stop working for the country
Zayed Sustainability Prize
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
Company%20profile
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ULTRA PROCESSED FOODS
- Carbonated drinks, sweet or savoury packaged snacks, confectionery, mass-produced packaged breads and buns
- Margarines and spreads; cookies, biscuits, pastries, cakes, and cake mixes, breakfast cereals, cereal and energy bars
- Energy drinks, milk drinks, fruit yoghurts and fruit drinks, cocoa drinks, meat and chicken extracts and instant sauces
- Infant formulas and follow-on milks, health and slimming products such as powdered or fortified meal and dish substitutes
- Many ready-to-heat products including pre-prepared pies and pasta and pizza dishes, poultry and fish nuggets and sticks, sausages, burgers, hot dogs, and other reconstituted meat products, powdered and packaged instant soups, noodles and desserts
The five pillars of Islam
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COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
Simran
Director Hansal Mehta
Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Soham Shah, Esha Tiwari Pandey
Three stars
Director: Romany Saad
Starring: Mirfat Amin, Boumi Fouad and Tariq Al Ibyari
more from Janine di Giovanni
THE SPECS
Engine: 4.4-litre V8
Transmission: Automatic
Power: 530bhp
Torque: 750Nm
Price: Dh535,000
On sale: Now
Your rights as an employee
The government has taken an increasingly tough line against companies that fail to pay employees on time. Three years ago, the Cabinet passed a decree allowing the government to halt the granting of work permits to companies with wage backlogs.
The new measures passed by the Cabinet in 2016 were an update to the Wage Protection System, which is in place to track whether a company pays its employees on time or not.
If wages are 10 days late, the new measures kick in and the company is alerted it is in breach of labour rules. If wages remain unpaid for a total of 16 days, the authorities can cancel work permits, effectively shutting off operations. Fines of up to Dh5,000 per unpaid employee follow after 60 days.
Despite those measures, late payments remain an issue, particularly in the construction sector. Smaller contractors, such as electrical, plumbing and fit-out businesses, often blame the bigger companies that hire them for wages being late.
The authorities have urged employees to report their companies at the labour ministry or Tawafuq service centres — there are 15 in Abu Dhabi.
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Jigra
Starring: Alia Bhatt, Vedang Raina, Manoj Pahwa, Harsh Singh
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Libya's Gold
UN Panel of Experts found regime secretly sold a fifth of the country's gold reserves.
The panel’s 2017 report followed a trail to West Africa where large sums of cash and gold were hidden by Abdullah Al Senussi, Qaddafi’s former intelligence chief, in 2011.
Cases filled with cash that was said to amount to $560m in 100 dollar notes, that was kept by a group of Libyans in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso.
A second stash was said to have been held in Accra, Ghana, inside boxes at the local offices of an international human rights organisation based in France.
Our legal columnist
Name: Yousef Al Bahar
Advocate at Al Bahar & Associate Advocates and Legal Consultants, established in 1994
Education: Mr Al Bahar was born in 1979 and graduated in 2008 from the Judicial Institute. He took after his father, who was one of the first Emirati lawyers
