Piaggio Talk

http://www.piaggioaerospace.it/en/media ... -submitted

After 19 expressions of interest. Who will come out on top - Textron, Daher??

Some of the shortlisted interested buyers left, now they are maybe 15 left.

The unions forces on the government to exercise the "Golden Power" for strategic industries and push for a 100% acquisition by Leonardo Company (which is controlled by the government).

However, Leonardo CEO (Mr. Profumo) continues to declare that he is only interested in the Engines an Customer Support departments.

According to the press, there may be other smaller bidders interested in a partnership just to split the different portion of Piaggio.

The due diligence period finished on last 4 December, final offers are expected within the end of this year / beginning of next.

I'm crossing the fingers.

Daniele

So if Leonardo purchased the whole thing (as the Unions would like to see), do you see anything changing? In my opinion, Piaggio needs a completely new strategy with less stalk in corporate interests and more stalk in customer interests. Really both interests are in complete alignment if the company becomes successful. They need a change of mindset, and I don't know that Leonardo will provide that.
Chris

The union's main target is only to preserve the employment level, regardless of the buyer plans.
Do you want to build P.180's? OK. P.1HH instead? Fine! Going back to Vespa? Great!
Of course Leonardo, being public, is a sort of guarantee for this objective.
Full stop.

Piaggio has been always criticized about the special treatment received by the government: the number P.180 sold to the various military corps, the extended period of paid layoffs allowed, R&D funding, etc. Acquisition by Leonardo will only confirm this reputation.

The truth is that every aerospace company in Italy also survives thanks to the government: name a single helicopter model built by Leonardo (former Agusta) that was not acquired by the military corps... All the previous mid/big aeronautics companies (Alenia, Aermacchi, Agusta, Marchetti) are now part of Leonardo. Why Piaggio should be different? I believe it should be different because is the only one with some experience in the fixed wing civil market.

There's a gap between what the unions wants and what the company needs.
If a private buyer want to invest in the company, then it is better to have someone really interested in developing, marketing and supporting the products, not another Mubadala only interested to have a drone (and eventually not necessary the P.1HH, but this is another story) and for this reason stopped everything else.

Regardless of all the above I don't think there will be any issue for maintaining the P.180 in service. Even with the worst scenario, the type is yet well known to be supported by a lot of independent service centers.

Just my 2 cents.

Daniele

Best of all worlds if Daher or Pilatus would buy it. It fits perfectly in the Pilatus line between the PC12 and the PC24.

dreaming I am sure...

According to an article published yesterday in the local newspaper, of the 19 initial subjects who expressed interest in buying the company, 11 had access to the last selection phase and received the draft of the purchase agreement on last 4 December, heading for the final discussions.

The identity of the interested parties is kept confidential, but some information has been leaked. Interested parties seem to include:
- Avio Aero (General Electric group): production of aircraft engines and parts in Italy
- Atitech: aircraft maintenance in Italy (Alitalia fleet is maintained by them)
- A couple of American investment funds
- A couple of Chinese investment funds
- Pac Investments: a Luxembourg fund with Chinese participation led by a group of former Piaggio executives (Including Mr. Galassi, former CEO and President of Piaggio Aero Industries) who left after the sale to Mubadala
- Phase Motion Control: a company specialized in electro-mechanical actuation systems and electric propulsion in Italy
- Leonardo Company: the Italian Public Company, leader of the aerospace industry (Alenia, Aermacchi, Agusta-Westland are all part of it).

As you can see, no "pure" aeronautical companies are listed, but I guess those, if any, are the most confidential ones...

The newspaper puts a lot of emphasis on the last two mentioned subjects. In detail, Phase is a company with headquarters located in Genoa, in the same facilities already used by Piaggio Aerospace before the transfer of the Final Assembly Line to Villanova d'Albenga. It is not clear if Phase runs in partnership with some other company with aeronautical experience, in any case it seems interested in the whole company.

Leonardo, on the other hand, is the solution heavily sponsored by the trade unions because, being state-owned, it would be the buyer who could best guarantee the employment levels. Despite this, the company has always claimed to be interested in purchasing only the engine and maintenance activities, excluding the aircraft and aero-structures branch.

The "splitted" sale is opposed by the unions, but frankly speaking, it is more a "desire" rather than a constraint. On top, the government "Golden Power" could drive the final selection in order to preserve the National Interests.

According to the newspaper, the purchase price of the company is estimated at "a few tens of millions of Euros", while the order backlog totals around 600 million. The reason may be the hundreds of millions of debts accumulated by the "bad company" and over 900 jobs to be guaranteed for at least two years from the acquisition.

That's great information Daniele. Thank you. It will be interesting to see who the other couple of players are.
Do you know what the timeline is for a further short list, or even selection of the desired bidder?
Chris

Everybody says "as soon as possible" (even within this year) but without an official commitment.

Soooo any news yet on who is buying Piaggio??

Mark

Piaggio Aerospace invites bidders to make purchase offer

It looks like we might have some news on Piaggio's future in a couple of months. It's interesting that the first phase is non-binding. I sure hope they are looking at supporting their existing fleet and not just focusing on new projects (light jets), as I've seen in other articles. In any case, we'll know soon.
Chris