CExcluding Boeing, the transaction will be all-stock, at a price of $37.25 per share, valuing Spirit AeroSystems at $4.7 billion. Including Spirit’s debt, the deal is valued at $8.3 billion, the U.S. manufacturer said in a statement. Boeing is by far Spirit’s largest customer, with 60% of its revenue coming from the aircraft manufacturer in 2022, including fuselages. But the equipment manufacturer is also a strategic supplier to Airbus, for which it produces wing components in particular.
In a separate statement on Monday, the European aircraft manufacturer said it had “entered into a binding agreement with Spirit AeroSystems for the potential acquisition of major Airbus-related businessesThe transaction will be for a symbolic dollar, and Airbus will even receive compensation of 559 million dollars, according to the initial terms of the agreement, subject to change and the imprimatur of the authorities. And this while Airbus will have to make additional investments at Spirit to support the increase in production. This is a crucial subject for the European manufacturer, which revised downward its annual objectives for deliveries of commercial aircraft last week.
“We believe this agreement is in the best interests of travelers, our customers, Spirit and Boeing employees, our shareholders and our country more generally.“, said Dave Calhoun, Boeing’s CEO, quoted in his company’s press release. Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems had confirmed preliminary discussions for this remarriage in early March. Spirit AeroSystems, created in 2005 by Boeing, is in fact the result of several of its activities grouped together in an independent company.
Spirit AeroSystems and Boeing have been under scrutiny since a door stopper on the fuselage of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 detached mid-flight on January 5. On March 4, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said that “non-compliance issues in manufacturing control process, handling and storage of spare parts and production control” had been spotted at Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems.
Three of the four families of commercial airplanes currently manufactured by Boeing are under FAA investigation for quality issues: the 737, 777 and 787 Dreamliner. The proposed acquisition by Airbus, subject to a due diligence process by the troubled OEM, would involve “major activities related to Airbus”, according to the European group.
It would notably concern the production of fuselage sections of the A350 located in Kinston (North Carolina) and Saint-Nazaire (France), wings and central fuselage of the A220 in Belfast (Northern Ireland) and Casablanca (Morocco), as well as the A220 pylons in Wichita (Kansas). “With this agreement, Airbus intends to ensure the stability of supply for its commercial aircraft programs through a more sustainable evolution, both operationally and financially, of the various Airbus work packages of which Spirit AeroSystems is today. today responsible”.
Launched into an outsourcing policy to retain only the final assembly of aircraft, Boeing separated in 2005 from its factory in Wichita (Kansas), specializing in aerostructures, giving birth to Spirit AeroSystems. The company has since diversified its customers and grown through acquisitions. But its difficulties led Boeing to announce in early March that it was considering reinstating Spirit. It was unthinkable for Airbus that its main competitor would become one of its strategic suppliers.
The executive president of Airbus Guillaume Faury had confided at the end of April to monitor the situation “closely”. “We do not want large packages of work to be provided by our main and only competitor,” he stressed. On the Paris Stock Exchange, Airbus shares rose 1.67% to 130.40 euros, in a market up 1.13% around 11:50 a.m.
