LUBOMIR SEDLAK / PRAGUE
The Czech government is calling for debt-laden Aero Vodochody to be audited by the end of the year. Ministers, unhappy with the role of large minority shareholder Boeing in the running of the Czech manufacturer, are apparently looking for ways to step up pressure on the US company to meet its promise to secure major production contracts, or pull out altogether.
At an extraordinary meeting of Aero shareholders on 13 November, however, Boeing succeeded in keeping three of its employees on the five-member management board, despite holding only a 35% stake.
Furthermore, the Czech company's vice-president Viktor Kucera resolutely denied a report in local daily newspaper Hospodárské‚ Noviny that "without state help, Aero will go bankrupt".
Kucera nevertheless conceded that the company has already lost almost CKr1 billion ($36 million) as a result of its Boeing-brokered contract to build Sikorsky S-76+ airframes. Boeing declines to comment.
The planned audit should, among other things, reveal more about deliveries of avionics by Boeing to Aero. Czech finance minister Bohuslav Sobotka says that these supplies "are a subject of certain speculations", although Kucera told Flight International that his company's management "does not know what the actual reservations are".
Apart from assembling helicopters for Sikorsky, the only other major work the Czech company has is repairing older L-39 and L-59 aircraft. Before the end of the year, therefore, Aero plans to lay off around 10% of its 2,100 employees.
Source: Flight International
