Bombardier CEO sees blue skies and less debt after major overhaul
When Eric Martel returned to Bombardier Inc. in the spring of 2020, the company was hardly recognizable from the one he’d left five years earlier. Bombardier had just sold its two biggest divisions, which built commercial jets and trains, in a desperate, sell-anything-you-can effort to raise money. A new viral disease called Covid-19 was ripping around the globe, forcing governments to lock down and throwing the world economy into recession. Bombardier’s factories went silent. “The company was in a very, very precarious situation,” Martel, 55, said during an interview in a lounge overlooking the firm’s jet finishing plant, near Montreal’s international airport. Today, his task is no longer merely to keep the aerospace firm solvent. It’s to convince investors he has a credible plan for real growth, whatever happens in the economy. Bombardier announced more ambitious financial targets on Thursday, aiming for at least $9b in revenue and $900m in free cash flow in 2025. That’s up from previous goals of $7.5b and $500m, respectively. The shares have risen nearly sixfold since he took over as CEO, a relief rally as the company made progress on paying down its towering debts. “We hit the bottom of the slope in 2020, and we are going back up,” said Martel. Bombardier’s slide toward the brink of bankruptcy was triggered by its decision to challenge Boeing and Airbus with the C Series commercial aircraft program. It became a sinkhole: development costs went way over budget at $6b and the company was forced to offload it to Airbus, which renamed the jet the A220. That was merely one stage in a yearslong fire sale that also led Bombardier to divest its huge train-making division to France’s Alstom SA in early 2020. Soon after it was announced, Alain Bellemare departed as CEO. It was up to Martel to finish the Alstom deal and two others and get the cash in the hangar. “There were three major transactions that were put into question in the context of Covid,” he said. “There were challenges, and we closed them all.”<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2023-03-24/general/bombardier-ceo-sees-blue-skies-and-less-debt-after-major-overhaul
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Bombardier CEO sees blue skies and less debt after major overhaul
When Eric Martel returned to Bombardier Inc. in the spring of 2020, the company was hardly recognizable from the one he’d left five years earlier. Bombardier had just sold its two biggest divisions, which built commercial jets and trains, in a desperate, sell-anything-you-can effort to raise money. A new viral disease called Covid-19 was ripping around the globe, forcing governments to lock down and throwing the world economy into recession. Bombardier’s factories went silent. “The company was in a very, very precarious situation,” Martel, 55, said during an interview in a lounge overlooking the firm’s jet finishing plant, near Montreal’s international airport. Today, his task is no longer merely to keep the aerospace firm solvent. It’s to convince investors he has a credible plan for real growth, whatever happens in the economy. Bombardier announced more ambitious financial targets on Thursday, aiming for at least $9b in revenue and $900m in free cash flow in 2025. That’s up from previous goals of $7.5b and $500m, respectively. The shares have risen nearly sixfold since he took over as CEO, a relief rally as the company made progress on paying down its towering debts. “We hit the bottom of the slope in 2020, and we are going back up,” said Martel. Bombardier’s slide toward the brink of bankruptcy was triggered by its decision to challenge Boeing and Airbus with the C Series commercial aircraft program. It became a sinkhole: development costs went way over budget at $6b and the company was forced to offload it to Airbus, which renamed the jet the A220. That was merely one stage in a yearslong fire sale that also led Bombardier to divest its huge train-making division to France’s Alstom SA in early 2020. Soon after it was announced, Alain Bellemare departed as CEO. It was up to Martel to finish the Alstom deal and two others and get the cash in the hangar. “There were three major transactions that were put into question in the context of Covid,” he said. “There were challenges, and we closed them all.”<br/>
