Bombardier Rejects Aid Proposal From Canadian Government A spokesman for Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains, who is leading the review of Bombardier’s request, declined to comment on the government offer. "The discussions are ongoing," Philip Proulx said. Isabelle Rondeau, a Bombardier spokeswoman, declined to comment.
Discussions continued as recently as this week. The government has presented its opening proposal, according to people familiar with negotiations, and both sides remain far apart on a deal. The government is seeking unspecified concessions from Bombardier and is otherwise prepared to walk away, the officials said.
Corporate governance and the company’s dual-class share structure remain barriers for a deal, though there are multiple sticking points, the officials said, declining to identify them. Under the dual-class share structure, the founding Beaudoin-Bombardier family is able to effectively control the company with its voting shares while only holding a minority stake in the non-voting class B shares.
Complex Deal
Canada doesn’t plan to emulate the Quebec deal and instead is pursuing a more complex arrangement that one official nonetheless called an investment.
The state-of-the-art C Series, with a composite frame and efficient fuel consumption, is more than two years late and more than $2 billion over budget as it nears its commercial debut at Deutsche Lufthansa AG’s Swiss International unit in the third quarter.
An order from AirBaltic boosts the C Series’ firm-order backlog to 250. Bombardier is 50 aircraft short of its target of 300 by the time the jet enters service. Air Canada, which signed a letter of intent for at least 45 CS300s in February, has yet to turn that commitment into a firm order. Including firm orders, conditional sales and options, Bombardier now has commitments for 678 C Series aircraft.