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Boeing is negotiating to purchase Spirit Aerosystems, the supplier of the fuselages of the Boeing 737 Max, which was the cause of a series of production errors until the Alaska Airlines crash on January 5th. The Wall Street Journal writes according to which Spirit, which was spun off from the American manufacturer in 2005, has already contacted banks to explore strategic options and has already had preliminary discussions with Boeing.
According to the financial newspaper, Spirit is also considering selling its division in Ireland where parts for Airbus are produced.
The leap to Wall Street
Spirit shares jumped 19% on Wall Street while Boeing fell as much as 2.3%. Spirit’s market capitalization is around $3.3 billion.
Spirit was spun off from Boeing in 2005 and sold to private investors, ending nearly 80 years of collaboration with the US manufacturer. The move was part of Boeing’s strategy to become leaner and therefore more profitable, but without Boeing’s protection, the supplier found itself in difficulty especially during the Covid crisis when production lines remained idle. Right during the 2020 crisis, Spirits cut 6,800 employees and imposed a four-day work week to preserve liquidity. The latest incident has turned into a reputational crisis for Boeing which had to postpone its financial forecast for 2024 when it announced quarterly results in January.