Figeac Aero – one of France’s most prolific build-to-print manufacturers – is on its way back to financial stability after revenue and profits nosedived and debt soared during the pandemic.
It comes as the business seeks new investors and leadership following chief executive and majority shareholder Jean-Claude Maillard’s decision to step back from day-to-day control in the next two years.
The experience of Figeac Aero, founded by Maillard in 1989 in the southwest France town of the same name (also home to Collins Aerospace’s propeller business, the former Ratier Figeac), is perhaps typical of many small and medium-sized enterprises in the wake of the 2020 aviation crisis. After three decades of steady growth, largely tied to the success of its biggest ultimate customer, Airbus, it shed three-fifths of its revenues almost overnight.
A customer mix that left it heavily reliant on the A350 – production and deliveries of which plummeted when Covid halted most long-haul travel – did not help its financial position. Neither did a business model based on more than two decades of debt-funded capital investment and acquisitions. As a result, in 2022, Figeac Aero was forced to reschedule its borrowings to stay in business.
However, since then things have looked up. The company – which specialises in light alloy and hard metal structural parts for engines, landing gear and other sub-assemblies – has just reported revenues for the 12 months to 31 March of €432 million ($496 million). That compares with €397 million the previous year. EBITDA also reached a record €69.5 million.
The financial performance represents a significant rebound for the company, which has met its target of returning revenues to pre-Covid levels and claims to be on track to reduce its leverage ratio to around three by March next year. Announcing the results, Maillard described 2024/25 as a “major turning point in Figeac Aero’s history”, which has left the business “in a much stronger position than ever”.
Figeac Aero’s early fortunes closely mirrored that of Airbus, based just 2h drive away in Toulouse. Maillard, at the time an aerospace mechanical engineer in his early thirties, set up the business with a share capital of just €18,000. The airframer, with its latest A320 narrowbody family freshly in service, was expanding fast and needed reliable, local subcontractors that could supply its final assembly line.
By the 2000s, Maillard’s firm had diversified to supply Airbus Helicopters, Bombardier, Dassault, Embraer, Gulfstream, Safran and Spirit AeroSystems. Despite setbacks, including the collapse of promising new customer Eclipse Aviation in 2008, revenues quadrupled over the decade, boosted by takeovers and capital spend. In the 2010s, the arrival of the A350 brought further workshare, with the widebody going on to represent a large chunk of Figeac Aero’s pre-Covid revenues.
Acquisitions and greenfield investments have been a significant part of the Figeac Aero expansion story. Over the years it has absorbed several small companies close to its main site, some in financial difficulties, including MTI in Decanzeville and Brive-based Mécabrive Industries. Further afield, it has opened in northeast France, Mexico, Morocco, Romania, Tunisia, and the USA, and established joint ventures in China and Saudi Arabia, giving it a total today of 14 production sites.
Although some developments have been to outsource lower-value manufacturing, most have been with the intention of moving production closer to the customer. For instance, a factory in Morocco serves Safran’s nacelles business across the street. One near Paris supports Safran’s CFM International Leap-1A final assembly line; others supply Airbus Atlantic’s aerostructures plants in France. Its Wichita-based North American operation also provides a hedge against US tariffs.
Although around two-thirds of Figeac Aero’s revenues come directly or indirectly from Airbus, its Safran business also involves work for the Boeing 737 Max’s Leap-1B engine. Meanwhile, the company has also in the past six months announced several contract wins for its US facility, including the production of wing skins for the Textron Aviation Beechcraft T-6 Texan/AT-6 Wolverine and Gulfstream G500, and aluminium skins for the 737 Max.
With Maillard, 68, making no secret of his wish to divest his 52% controlling stake, the rumour mill has begun. Earlier this year, Figeac Aero, a minority of shares in which are traded on the Paris stock exchange, was forced to issue a statement to say it would comply with any disclosure requirements following press reports linking it with an Indian group.
According to Simon Derbanne, Figeac Aero’s director of investor relations, the business – which is exhibiting at Paris and employs 3,300 people worldwide – is making good progress towards what it calls its Pilot 28 objectives. These include a “focus on generating cash” and taking revenues to €600 million and EBITA to six figures by 2028.
With investment firm TKO Capital also looking to divest its 26% share, Derbanne says almost four-fifths of the company’s capital is set to change hands in the next two or three years, beginning a new era for the business four decades after its foundation. With Derbanne hinting that several suitors have expressed an interest in Figeac Aero, conversations may well be already taking place at the show this week.
