New details (to me any way) on the C!
....Getting closer and closer! Reading this BBD can't pull back.
Bombardier Rises as Quarterly Net More Than Doubles (Update1)
By Hugo Miller
June 4 (Bloomberg) -- Bombardier Inc. reached its highest since 2002 in Toronto trading after doubling its first-quarter profit and disclosing talks for the new, larger CSeries regional jet with carriers including Deutsche Lufthansa AG.
Bombardier will decide this year whether to build the plane and would deliver the first one in 2013, Chief Executive Officer Pierre Beaudoin said today at the company's annual shareholders' meeting. Montreal-based Bombardier said it's talking to Chinese carriers and other European airlines in addition to Lufthansa, Europe's No. 2 carrier.
``As the fuel price goes up, the CSeries becomes even more attractive'' to carriers trying to absorb a 72 percent jump in jet fuel over the past year, Beaudoin said on a conference call. Bombardier says its plane will burn 21 percent less fuel than rivals' new 100-seat jets.
Disclosure of the talks highlighted Beaudoin's debut as CEO of the world's third-largest aircraft maker. The 45-year-old former head of Bombardier's aviation unit today succeeded his father, Laurent Beaudoin, 70, who remains chairman. Bombardier also reinstated its dividend after three years.
The CSeries would seat between 110 and 130 passengers and represent a ``major expansion'' for Bombardier, said Pierre Beaudoin. He called the midsize commercial jet market ``badly served'' by aircraft makers.
Financial results for the first quarter beat analysts' estimates. Net income rose to $226 million, or 12 cents a share, from $79 million, or 4 cents, a year earlier, Bombardier said today in a statement. Revenue advanced 21 percent to $4.79 billion in the period ended April 30.
Shares Rise
Bombardier rose 74 cents, or 9.1 percent, to C$8.90 at 4:16 p.m. in Toronto Stock Exchange trading, for the biggest daily increase in a year and the highest price since August 2002. The stock has climbed 49 percent this year.
The 2.5-cent quarterly dividend will be paid to shareholders July 31. The payout had been discontinued in March 2005, after Bombardier reported a full-year loss.
The company is winning more orders for Q400 turboprops from carriers trying to trim fuel costs, and for its Lear and Challenger business jets from Chinese, Indian and Russian customers. About 70 percent of Bombardier's new business-jet orders come from outside the U.S., helping cushion the manufacturer from a slowdown in the world's largest economy.
Business-jet demand remains ``very vigorous'' and ``our order backlog and better diversification allow us to tackle the fluctuations in the market,'' Pierre Beaudoin said today.
Bombardier is considering building a larger version of the 70-seat Q400 to accommodate demand, Laurent Beaudoin told reporters at a briefing.
Future Orders
Aircraft sales climbed 5.3 percent in the quarter to $2.38 billion as the value of Bombardier planes on order and not yet delivered rose 6 percent to $24.1 billion. The unit's profit margin, or profit as a percentage of sales, climbed to 8.7 percent from 8 percent a year earlier.
Revenue from Bombardier's transportation unit gained 41 percent to $2.41 billion, helped by deliveries of trams to a Brussels-based streetcar operator, locomotives to the New Jersey Transit Corp. and a Delhi metro-car order. The order backlog for the unit was $31.4 billion on April 30, 1.6 percent higher than a year earlier.
The transportation unit's margin increased 0.6 percentage point to 4.8 percent, and Bombardier is targeting a margin of 6 percent by fiscal 2010.
The profit beat the average estimate of 9 cents a share from 11 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.
To contact the reporter on this story: Hugo Miller in Toronto on hugomiller@bloomberg.net.
Last Updated: June 4, 2008 17:19 EDT