Raytheon Sale of Beechcraft, Hawker, all GA imminent

[Owen[_5_]]

Raytheon has been trying to unload its general aviation / business
aircraft business for years and the Boston Globe is now reporting that a
buyer has reportedly been found and negotiations are in final stages.

The buyer is reportedly one of these three:

Carlyle Group of Washington
Cerberus Capital Management of New York
Onex Corp. of Toronto, Canada

Full Story:

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2006/11/25/raytheon_near_deal_for_aircraft_unit/

[Raytheon purchased Beechcraft in 1980, the Mitsubushi Diamond business
jet production in 1985 (production was moved from Japan to Wichita, KS),
and the Hawker business jet line from British Aerospace in 1993.]

[Greg Farris]

In article >, says...
>
>
>Raytheon has been trying to unload its general aviation / business
>aircraft business for years and the Boston Globe is now reporting that a
>buyer has reportedly been found and negotiations are in final stages.
>


It's true they have been trying to off-load RAC for years, turning their backs
on a profitibale division, with prodigious growth potential. The Hawkers are
one of the most successful lines of business aircraft, even if less visible
than the ubiquitous Citations from rival, Cessna. Add to this the KingAir
series, perhaps on their way out, but today the most successful business
aircraft in history, and it's a bit difficult to understand why Raytheon has
been struggling so hard to get rid of it all, rather than developing something
to compete directly with the Mustang and Honda. It seems they cannot put their
faith in anything that doesn't kill large numbers of people!

In view of the way things are going for schedued airlines these days, the
growth potential for business aviation seems assured. They'll probably be
better off without Raytheon anyway, assuming they find an acquisition deal that
allows them to develop a real growth strategy, and not to be broken up and sold
off for scrap metal.

[Mxsmanic]

Owen writes:

> Raytheon has been trying to unload its general aviation / business
> aircraft business for years and the Boston Globe is now reporting that a
> buyer has reportedly been found and negotiations are in final stages.
>
> The buyer is reportedly one of these three:
>
> Carlyle Group of Washington
> Cerberus Capital Management of New York
> Onex Corp. of Toronto, Canada

All of these potential buyers are purely money-oriented companies. If
they buy Raytheon's activity, it will most likely be gutted for its
liquidation value, and then shut down. In any case, it will be the
end of an era.

--
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[Mxsmanic]

Greg Farris writes:

> They'll probably be better off without Raytheon anyway ...

Not if the buyer is one of the three companies listed. Those are all
money-obsessed holding companies. All they care about is maximum cash
from one quarter to the next, and they don't care how they get it.

> ... assuming they find an acquisition deal that
> allows them to develop a real growth strategy, and not to be broken up and sold
> off for scrap metal.

They'll need to find different buyers if they don't want that.

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

[Matt Barrow]

"Greg Farris" > wrote in message
...
> In article >, says...
>>
>>
>>Raytheon has been trying to unload its general aviation / business
>>aircraft business for years and the Boston Globe is now reporting that a
>>buyer has reportedly been found and negotiations are in final stages.
>>
>
>
> It's true they have been trying to off-load RAC for years, turning their
> backs
> on a profitibale division, with prodigious growth potential.

Hmmm...

I wonder if they see so many new designs coming out that their future sales
volume is in jeopardy?

With the proliferation of such commuter airliners such as produced by
Embrarer, are they seeing that their 40 year old designs are coming into
serious competition?

>The Hawkers are
> one of the most successful lines of business aircraft, even if less
> visible
> than the ubiquitous Citations from rival, Cessna. Add to this the KingAir
> series, perhaps on their way out, but today the most successful business
> aircraft in history, and it's a bit difficult to understand why Raytheon
> has
> been struggling so hard to get rid of it all, rather than developing
> something
> to compete directly with the Mustang and Honda. It seems they cannot put
> their
> faith in anything that doesn't kill large numbers of people!

Hawker makes a nice product, but so does Gulfstream, Legacy, Cessna,
Falcon...

One more, perhaps most critical, thing is that Raytheon is a massive
bureaucracy that cannot do new product development as adroitly as the new
upstarts. (?)


--
Matt
---------------------
Matthew W. Barrow
Site-Fill Homes, LLC.
Montrose, CO (MTJ)