The Limited Times

Now you can see non-English news...

Alstom to acquire Bombardier rail operations for $ 7 billion

2020-02-17T08:56:42.999Z


This merger could give birth to the world's number two railway equipment.


Alstom has reached a preliminary agreement to acquire the rail business of the Canadian group Bombardier for more than $ 7 billion (6.4 billion euros), the Wall Street Journal announced on Sunday. The French railway group confirmed this Monday morning that it was indeed in "talks" with Bombardier. “Discussions are underway. No final decision has been made, ”said Alstom.

This acquisition, which should essentially be denominated in cash with a share in shares, could give birth to the world number two in railway equipment behind the Chinese CRRC.

According to several sources, the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, which owns 32.5% of the capital of the rail sector of Bombardier, has agreed to sell this stake to Alstom and to acquire a minority stake in the merged entity.

The objective of Bombardier, which announced Thursday its definitive exit in the medium-haul aircraft A 220, is to quickly purge its debt of 9 billion dollars while the group recorded an annual loss of 1.6 billion dollars.

Regarding rail activities, most of the Bombardier factories are in Europe. The two companies are already used to participating together in consortia in large tenders.

Brussels must examine the project

The fact remains that in 2017, Alstom, which had tried to merge with the railway activity of the German Siemens, was hired by the European Commission last year. The latter was concerned about the consequences of the operation for competition in the signaling systems market and that of very high speed trains.

Again, Brussels should carefully examine the proposed merger between Alstom and Bombardier, which will leave rail companies and operators less choice for their future contracts. Bombardier's rail industry has a significant presence in Europe, with a head office in Germany.

“It pays me” newsletter

The newsletter that improves your purchasing power

I'm registering

Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to allow you to receive our news and commercial offers. Find out more

And this time, it is Siemens could also seek to thwart the plans of Alstom and Bombardier, the latter having opposed at the time the project of merger between the German group and Alstom.

Source: leparis

All business articles on 2020-02-17

You may like

Business 2024-03-23T00:03:49.742Z
News/Politics 2024-02-02T15:01:31.589Z

Trends 24h

Latest

© Communities 2019 - Privacy

The information on this site is from external sources that are not under our control.
The inclusion of any links does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.