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Aviation History
2001
2001 - 0022.PDF
BUSINESS New owners for Pilatus. Piaggio KATE SARSFIELD/LONDON ANDY NATIVI/GENOA UNAXIS Holding is selling its Pilatus Aircraft subsidiary to a Swiss-led group of investors, while fellow general aviation manufac turer Piaggio Aero Industries is once again under full Italian con trol following the sale of remaining shares held by Turkey's Tushav. The sale of Pilatus to Swiss investor Joerg Burkart, Zurich- based bank IHAG Holding, Basle's Hoffmann-La Roche pension fund and Icelandic air charter entrepre neur Hilmar Hilmarsson follows a two year search by Unaxis (former ly Oerlikon-Buhle) for a "an opti mum solution" for its disposal. Unaxis says die new owners "are committed to further developing NEWS IN BRIEF • AIR CANADA JOB SLASH Air Canada is slashing 3,500 jobs or 8% of its workforce and raising domestic fares by 6% after warning that it expects to take a loss for the fourth quarter of 2000. The carrier, which has now inte grated Canadian Airlines, says recent bad weather has compounded problems relat ing to high fuel prices, restructuring and labour costs. Air Canada has also faced competition from smaller carriers seeking to exploit the disappearance of Canadian, but was ordered to drop price cuts on certain routes following complaints from Canjet. It plans to appeal against the decision. Pilatus", and plan an initial public offering via a listing in diree or four years. The deal should be complet ed within weeks, when die price will be disclosed. Stans-based Pilatus produces PC-7 and PC-9 military trainers, die PC-6 Turbo Porter utility aircraft and die sin gle-engine PC-12 business and utility aircraft. It owns Swiss main tenance company TSATransairco. Tushav's remaining 17.5% stake in Piaggio has been bought by an unnamed group of Italian investors. Pilatus' PC-12 should continue to thrive under its new ownership Tushav once held 51%, but cut diis to 35% with die disputed sale of a stake to die Di Mase, Buitoni, and Ferrari families (existing shareholders), giving diem 60% control. Piaggio expanded its capi tal from L10 billion ($5 million) to L20 billion in July 1999, with the Turkish stake falling to 17.5%. Tushav will now surrender diat stake, with Piaggio's share capital doubling to L40 billion. Piaggio delivered eight P180s in 2000 (its target was 15), achieving sales estimated at L180-190 bil lion, short of its L230 billion tar get. Its orderbook stands at L500 billion. Piaggio has won a contract from Rolls-Royce/Honeywell venture LHTEC for licensed pro duction of T800 engines for Italian Army Agusta 129 helicopters. • French solid rocket propulsion giant is created JULIAN MOXON/PARIS AMAJOR REGROUPING in France's solid rocket propul sion business has been agreed by Snecma and powder propellant specialist SNPE, with the engine giant also understood to be moving closer to sealing a major European engine alliance taking in Germany's MTU, Italy's Fiat Avio and Sweden's Volvo Aero. Snecma and SNPE will create a new company with around €500 million ($444 million) of annual sales. It will be equally owned and will merge Snecma's solid propul sion business with SNPE's ener getic materials activities, resulting in die largest such entity in Europe and die diird largest in die world. The as-yet unnamed company will take over Snecma/SNPE activities in launch vehicles and space propulsion; strategic and tac tical missiles propulsion; explosives and propellants; pyromechanisms, propellants and high performance composite materials. The deal should be finalised in early 2001. Sources say a further develop ment will see Celerg, the 50/50 EADS/SNPE tactical missiles/ ramjet subsidiary, transformed into "New Celerg", with 50% owned by Snecma/SNPE and the rest by "newMatra BAe Dynamics", BAE Systems subsidiary Royal Ordnance and Germany's Bayern Chemie. The move furthers Snecma expansion into the private sector, following the absorption of small turbines specialist Turbomeca and thrust reverser and aerostructures manufacturer Hurel Dubois. Industry sources now say that Snecma president Jean-Paul Bechat is hoping to form an engine grouping bringing together MTU, Fiat Avio and Volvo Aero. Bechat says Snecma, the world's fourth largest engine manufacturer, "will not be privatised for privati sation's sake", but only through "evolutions of capital structure". The bringing together of Snecma, MTU, Fiat and Rolls-Royce to power the A400M military trans port is seen as a prelude to possible European engine rationalisation, though R-R, which competes with Snecma on bodi civil and military engines, is unlikely to be included.^ KAI to give minority stake to creditors in exchange for new loans KOREA AEROSPACE Ind ustries' (KAI) biggest credi tors have agreed to accept a minority stake in the company in exchange for writing off debts of 75 billion won ($62.2 5 million). The creditors, including Korea Exchange Bank, have also agreed to provide new loans amounting to 80 billion won, while KAI's three parent companies - Daewoo, Hyundai and Samsung - will inject an additional 100 billion won. According to KAI, die transac tion should take place this month, and will increase KAI's capital base to over 450 billion won. The trans action will reduce KAI's debt-to- equity ratiobyabout half, to 150%, a goal to which it has long aspired. KAI says it is unclear as to what size stake will be given to creditors, and stresses that die shares to be hand ed over will be non-voting shares. KAI is now divided equally among the three South Korean chaebols, which formed the com pany in late 1999 from parts of their aerospace divisions as a result of government pressure for consol idation among the country's conglomerates. J 20 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL 2 - 8 January 2001
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