Airbus teams up with Bombardier on C-Series program

Philippe Wojazer | Reuters

An employee works on an Airbus A380 plane inside the Air France KLM maintenance hangar at the Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Roissy, near Paris, France, May 31, 2016.

Airbus Chief Executive Tom Enders said the company has offered to assemble some of the narrowbody jets at its U.S. plant in Alabama for orders by American carriers. The U.S. assembly line would mean the 110 to 130 seat jets would not be subject to possible U.S. anti-subsidy and anti-dumping duties of 300 percent, Bombardier Chief Executive Alain Bellemare said at a press conference.

“There is a ton of strategic value in doing this deal,” Bellemare said.

Talks for the deal first started in August. Enders said the deal is different from an earlier round of talks in 2015, when Airbus abruptly ended negotiations, Reuters reported then. He said the plane is performing better. “It’s an entirely different situation,” he said.

Under the deal, Bombardier will own about 31 percent, while Investissement Quebec, the investment arm of the province of Quebec, will hold 19 percent once the deal closes.

Separately, Quebec’s largest pension fund, which holds a 30 percent stake in Bombardier’s rail division, said the decision “strengthens the company, improves its prospects for growth, and makes the company more robust over the long term, which is important to shareholders.”