Julian Moxon/BORDES
As Europe's principal manufacturer of helicopter turboshafts and light military trainer engines, Turboméca clearly has strategic value. In the climate of mega-mergers, it is perhaps surprising to find that this company, nestling in the lee of the French Pyrennees, has no plans to offer itself as part of a greater powerplant entity.
"We're in a small club of global companies which are capable of developing, manufacturing and marketing engines," says president Jean-Bernard Cocheteux, who with 16 years at the company typifies the long service record of most of its employees. "We know our business and we have no intention of changing what we are doing nor to dilute it through mergers with other companies."
Turboméca's owner, the Labinal Group, has seen the company through some difficult times, investing large sums to keep it afloat during the difficult years at the beginning of the 1990s. "They believed in us then, and they still do," says Cocheteux, a member of the Labinal board.
"We recently evaluated our strengths and weaknesses and looked thoroughly at partnerships," he says. "We confirmed that our future is in helicopter and military aircraft engines and decided that we saw no point in looking for any new relationships."
Turboméca's most consistent international partner is Rolls-Royce, with which it is involved in the RTM322 turboshaft, the engine that is likely to guarantee the near-term future of the company. R-R is also its partner, along with MTU, on the MTR390 for the Eurocopter Tiger anti-tank helicopter, as well as on the Adour military trainer turbofan.
R-R's ownership of Allison does not, says Cocheteux, threaten, or even strain the relationship, although he admits there are competitions involving engines produced by Allison and Turboméca. "Our plan is to co-operate on programmes when it is justified and profitable," he says. Allison also brings a potential advantage in opening the US market to the RTM322, which is being offered on the Sikorsky S92 civil helicopter and on future versions of the Black Hawk utility machine. "The fact that Allison is in the Rolls-Royce family is not necessarily a problem. We must be practical.
"You have to look at what an alliance would bring us," he says. "The fact is that we are in a very good strategic position as the world number one in terms of numbers of engines produced." He points to the failure of the planned alliance with Sundstrand on auxiliary power units and hints that it was "-probably fortuitous-it would have meant new investments, and we would have had to attack new areas to widen the range of products. That would have been a major drain on our resources at a time when we needed to invest in Turboméca."
"We have plenty of room for progress within our product range and we have shown our main shareholder [Labinal] that we can make money." Cocheteux points to the 1998 figures in which the first profits were made since 1991, adding that 1999 will "-see an advance on that, conforming to our plan". Billings in 1998 were up by 29.4% on the year before, and are expected to achieve a similar growth this year.
In a sign of the way times have changed since the end of the era of virtually guaranteed military sales, the main market for Turboméca is no longer the French, but the UK Government.
Continued sales of the Hawk trainer mean that the Adour is still in demand, with the longer lifetime 900 version due to be certified in 2000. The RTM322 powers the three-engined Westland/Agusta Merlin navy helicopter and the British Army Boeing Apache anti-tank helicopter. It will, says Cocheteux, be a "formidable" engine for the company.
Years of trying to sell the smaller TM333 turboshaft to India for its Advanced Light Helicopter appear likely to pay off with the imminent announcement of an initial batch order for 30 engines. Cocheteux is looking at China as a potentially major market, but adds that the India experience has taught him that "patience is the word" when it comes to breaking into a new market.
"You have to be realistic, even in the West. We started talking to MTU in 1975 about the MTR390, and began work on the RTM322 in 1983 - its first application, the Merlin, is only now entering service." Cocheteux points out, however, that, if the RTM322 initiative had not been taken, "-the Merlin would have been powered by a US engine and we would have been out of that market forever".
After-sales service has become one of the main planks of Turboméca's sales strategy, with new offices being set up in Australia and Brazil. "We want to develop service centres in several countries,'' Cocheteux says, "because if you're there already you are in a better position to monitor what is going on with regard to possibilities for new sales."
Source: Flight International
