What’s the trouble with Bombardier and the CSeries?

By Bjorn Fehrm

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Introduction

Oct. 26, 2015, ©. Leeham Co: Bombardier (BBD) and the CSeries have been in the headlines for weeks. The CSeries development has taken longer than planned, with a cost overrun of approximately $2bn. But the company has $4.4bn in cash at end of 2Q 2015. So what is the trouble?

We go through the CSeries program and show the considerable additional cash burden that the start of production and deliveries is for an aircraft program like CSeries. We will get more data on the situation on the 29 October when Bombardier reports its 3Q results.

But it will not be necessary to wait until the 29th. It is rather straight forward to estimate the cash burden the CSeries program has on BBD with the data at hand. The program will burn through billions of cash even after certification and first delivery.

Summary:

  • We analyze the cash position of BBD with the contributors and consumers.
  • We also show the likely production costs of the CSeries aircraft during 2016 to 2018 and compare it to the net revenue that each delivered aircraft will bring.
  • We finally show what has triggered the recent activities around BBD and the CSeries.

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