Airbus aims to sign a contract by the end of this year for the acquisition of work packages currently managed by US firm Spirit AeroSystems.
The airframer previously signed a detailed binding term sheet setting out its plans to take over the A350 fuselage production in North Carolina and St Nazaire in France, as well as A220 work in various locations including Belfast.
“We have to get to a formal signing of the contract,” said Airbus chief financial officer Thomas Toepfer during a third-quarter briefing. “We’re expecting that to happen before the end of the year.”
Airbus’s term sheet also detailed a $559 million compensation package from Spirit, to cover its absorption of loss-making programmes.
“[This payment] should compensate the negative impact that we will then have with those programmes before we turn them to being neutral,” says Toepfer.
The compensation level is not contingent on any due diligence.
“We have to figure out exactly how that will be reflected in our financial statement,” adds Toepfer. “I think that’s still an open question, whether a provision or something similar could be built, in order to smoothen the accounting impact.
“But the most important thing for us is that, economically, we’ve achieved an agreement with Spirit that puts us in a good position, which is essentially neutral.”
