BUSINESS NEWS
12 Jan 09. EADS fell as much as 4.7 percent in Paris trading after the owner of Airbus SAS said deliveries of the A400M military transport plane won’t start until three years after the first flight. EADS declined as much as 64 cents to 13.05 euros and was down 4.6 percent as of 9:20 a.m. The stock has dropped 33 percent in the past 12 months, valuing the Paris- and Munich-based manufacturer at €10.6bn ($14.2bn). The additional delays to the military transport, already more than a year behind schedule, could mean as much as $6bn in cost overruns, aerospace analyst Nick Cunningham of Evolution Securities said following the announcement of the A400M’s delay after markets closed on Jan. 9. The statement comes as Toulouse, France-based Airbus, the world’s biggest maker of commercial aircraft, works through two- year production postponements on its A380 superjumbo. That project’s development costs ballooned to more than $18bn from $12bn as Airbus sought to wire the 525-seat plane’s cabins properly. The original contract called for first delivery of the A400M this year. The company said Nov. 24 that the plane’s initial test flight won’t take place before the second half of 2009. Now there’s no firm date for a flight. Delays stemming from engine-control software difficulties have already cost EADS €1.74bn ($2.34bn) and more charges may come in the fourth quarter, EADS Chief Executive Officer Louis Gallois said in November. (Source: Bloomberg)
12 Jan 09. Concern is mounting that EADS’s problems with the A400M military-transport program may spin out of control and result in billions of euros in additional charges after the company delayed the aircraft by another two years and declined to fix a date for its first flight. Late Friday, European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. (FR:005730: news , chart , profile ) said deliveries of the aircraft won’t start until three years after the undated first flight. The additional delay to the program, already more than a year late, could mean as much as $6bn in total cost overruns, according to Nick Cunningham, analyst at Evolution Securities. He said his estimate of this amount could rise further if the company has to pay damages to customers over the late deliveries. Meanwhile, Merrill Lynch analyst Charles Ermitage estimated that the aerospace and defense giant may have to take an additional provision of between €2.6bn and €3.9bn, on top of the €1.7bn in charges taken last year to cover for the first year of delay. “While the A400M problems are not new … at the moment they do appear to be unquantifiable and out of control,” the broker said. Citigroup analysts found the news of the setback “deeply disturbing” and said it suggests EADS is no nearer to establishing a revised timetable and getting the program back on track, EADS has so far said it cannot project the cost of the new delays. (Source: Google)
14 Jan 09. Nortel Networks Corp. filed for bankruptcy protection in Canada and the U.S. on Wednesday, citing a need to put itself “on a sound financial footing once and for all.” The troubled Canadian maker of telecommunications equipment and some of its units filed for court protection in Delaware and Ontario a day before the firm was due to repay $107m in bond interest. The company said subsidiaries are expected to make similar filings in Europe. The application under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act in Canada will be heard later Wednesday by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. The filing signals the failure of efforts by Nortel, once a technology icon and the country’s biggest company by market capitalization, to sell assets in its bid to raise additional liquidity in the face of declining demand for telecom equipment, as a result of the global economic slowdown.
15 Jan 09. Armor Designs, Inc., the developer of next-generation composite armour, announces that Hawthorne & York International, Ltd.(“HYI”), principal shareholder, is transferring 3,000,000 of its