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28 Apr 17. France’s Zodiac Aerospace on Friday reaffirmed its preference for a tie-up with engine maker Safran and said chief executive Olivier Zarrouati had agreed to stay on “for a while” after offering his resignation to the board. The aircraft seats maker announced the CEO’s decision as it posted a fiscal first-half current operating loss of 12m euros, hit by its troubled aircraft interiors business.
It said its board had asked Zarrouati to remain in his post “for a while, focusing his action on the finalization and execution of the deal with Safran, if Safran and Zodiac come to a renewed agreement, which is what we want.”
Speaking to reporters in a conference call, Zarrouati described the tie-up with Safran to create the world’s third-largest aerospace supplier as “our priority scenario”.
But he said an alternative scenario was necessary due to the headwinds faced by the $9bn merger proposal, which has come under fire from some Safran shareholders.
Talks with Safran are proceeding well, and Zodiac is waiting for Safran’s conclusions on a supplementary due-diligence exercise which has now been completed, he said.
Zodiac plans to accelerate its restructuring in order to prepare one of the two scenarios, he said.
Zodiac forecast a 200-220m euro current operating profit for the year to end August 2017 as a whole, implying a decline of up to 26 percent from the previous year’s 269.6m euros, compared with its most recent forecast of a 10-20 percent decline.
It has added “an extra layer of caution” to its evaluation of current operating income for 2016/17, said Zarrouati.
Zodiac has issued a series of profit warnings during a two-year industrial crisis at the company’s seat factories. (Source: Reuters)
28 Apr 17. Miti: Malaysia gaining momentum in aero parts and components export. Malaysia is gaining momentum in the export of aerospace parts and components after the industry’s strong growth in 2016, said International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed. He said Malaysia’s exports of aerospace products increased 32.6% in 2016 to RM5.53bn compared with RM4.17bn in 2015, with aerospace parts and components being the main export. In a statement following the Malaysian Aerospace Council (MAC) meeting on Friday, Mustapa said the positive growth was portrayed in the total revenue recorded in 2016, which totalled RM12.7bn.
“It was a remarkable year particularly for the aerospace manufacturing sub-sector which secured a revenue of RM6.4bn, an 11% increase compared to 2015.
“The maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) sub-sector recorded RM5.7bn in revenue, mainly supported by the expansion of aero-engine and component MRO activities,” he added.
Mustapa said that in 2016, nine aerospace projects with investments totalling RM1.6bn were approved, of which RM889.4m were foreign investments. The projects were expected to generate 1,766 jobs. As part of the Government’s efforts to develop small and medium enterprises (SMEs) to participate in the global aerospace supply chain, he said a structured SME development programme was launched under the Economic Transformation Programme’s Business Services Entry Point Project 8. In 2016, 10 SMEs were selected to participate in the programme and another 10 were to be selected for this year’s programme, said the statement. Mustapa said a new set of key performance indicators were to be achieved for this year’s EPP8 – RM24.6m cumulative sales for 20 SMEs and 500 Requests for Quotations for 10 new SMEs. (Source: News Now/The Star Onlin)
28 Apr 17. Thales acquires Guavus, one of the pioneers of real-time big data analytics
. Guavus is a pioneer in real-time big data processing and analytics
. Acquisition amount: