If the sale completes at the agreed price it will give them just enough cash to pay debt.Standard PR spin. Bombardier is in financial trouble. Selling the rail division to get cash in hope to get a pay off from the airline division.
I've taken writing classes before, and I was always instructed to make things simple. I had to look up what "deleveraging" meant. Let me give it a try.Standard PR spin. Bombardier is in financial trouble. Selling the rail division to get cash in hope to get a pay off from the airline division.
As long as Boeing doesn't get back into rail.BBD and their workforce must be reeeally mad at Boeing. The (pretty ridiculous) dumping petition Boeing did scared them into selling the CS to Airbus, seemingly fearing the plane wouldn't be sellable in the US without them, and then the MAX mess showed up.
And now....the now-A220 is quite well received and has a 550 order backlog while the (still larger than the largest A220) MAX 7 hasn't even entered service yet.
Having worked in the news industry, writers & editors like to use odd words, especially in headlines. I think the excuse they've come up with is that a reader will read the headline, not know what the word is & read the story to find out. In reality, they're just doing word wheelies.I've taken writing classes before, and I was always instructed to make things simple. I had to look up what "deleveraging" meant. Let me give it a try.
"Bombardier announces plane to focus on commercial aviation and sell transportation division to reduce debt."
That, and "if it's on Facebook it must be true".And if comments in response to articles posted in Facebook is any indication, most people don’t read the article anyway. They let their imagination run wild with title and blather on endlessly based on that flow of consciousness. [emoji57]
Siemens didn’t try to do anything like this. Siemens tried to merge with Alstom transportation division AFAIR. That is a much bigger deal than picking the carcass of a failing Bombardier, which is what Alstom is doing.So when does Siemens try to torpedo this? Alstom torpedoed the merger when Siemens tried to do this. Turnabout is fair play.
I have always had the impression that Bombardier's problem was that they emerged from a series of ad-hoc and often poorly thought out mergers of a large number of rail manufacturers, followed by ineffective attempts at consolidating these former rivals. My very first ever job was with ABB Transportation which through the intermediary of Adtranz became part of Bombardier. Although I left long before it became Bombardier, I stayed in touch with several people who worked there (but have all since left). It was always my impression that if there was one thing that Bombardier didn't have, it was an overall and long-term strategy or understanding of the market. Typically they would set their eyes on a smaller competitor, pour hundreds of millions into buying that competitor, only to discontinue its products and shut down its factories some years later. One of my friends who used to be with Bombardier later moved to Stadler and he said that the only reason that Stadler was able to grow so quickly and bring such good products to market so quickly was because Bombardier was firing experienced and seasoned engineers and designers by the dozen. Sometimes an entire department of recently fired Bombardier guys would be hired by Stadler in a single day. Many of these were people who had good contacts to customers, knew their language, and knew how to sell. In some countries, Bombardier was later trying to sell their products using sales agents who didn't even know the local language or know the particularities of the local railroads. Sometimes they didn't even have enough people on the ground to even tender for jobs that would have been cut out for them. Effectively Bombardier was handing away profitable market share on a silver tray. The only thing Stadler did was to reach out their long arm and pick up the pieces.Siemens didn’t try to do anything like this. Siemens tried to merge with Alstom transportation division AFAIR. That is a much bigger deal than picking the carcass of a failing Bombardier, which is what Alstom is doing.
I think they did OK until they started the ineffective attempts at consolidation. There was a period in which they were practically a holding company, and if they'd let the individual divisions do their own thing (maybe liquidating the ones which were least successful at sales) they would probably have been OK.I have always had the impression that Bombardier's problem was that they emerged from a series of ad-hoc and often poorly thought out mergers of a large number of rail manufacturers, followed by ineffective attempts at consolidating these former rivals.
Yep. The outsourcing to Mexico was probably the last straw.Effectively Bombardier was handing away profitable market share on a silver tray.
And the ABB/AdTranz light rail cars.In the rail business some of Bombardier's most recognizable products were acquired as you've described, rather than being their own designs. The two best examples - Superliner II's (Pullman Standard) and the ubiquitous lozenge-shaped commuter cars seen all over North America (Hawker-Siddley).
I think there were cases in which different parts of Bombadier were competing for the same jobs and they were undercutting one another's prices, leading to an erosion of overall profitability. I think top level management decided that the individual companies had way too much freedom and decided to take them onto the short leash, which probably makes sense. I think they also listened to the likes of McKinsey far too much who told them that excess capacity in factories was killing them and the way to fight excess capacity was to close factories and concentrate work onto fewer sites. The big glaring error in this thinking is that the rail maket is very much a boom and bust game and when orders started picking up they were unable to handle them.I think they did OK until they started the ineffective attempts at consolidation. There was a period in which they were practically a holding company, and if they'd let the individual divisions do their own thing (maybe liquidating the ones which were least successful at sales) they would probably have been OK.
There are potential add on orders from several US operations for those lozenges that may be forthcoming as various commuter agencies grow too. Two of them in Florida come to mind as a starter.You're right about the commuter coaches. Since they are the mainstay of GO Transit, the Government of Ontario has a vested interest in keeping Thunder Bay in operation. If they start rolling out with the Alstom name it will be the fourth "brand" for the same product: Hawker-Siddeley, UTDC, Bombardier and Alstom.