Cabin interiors specialist B/E Aersopace has risen six places in the rankings, to number 41, after boosting its sales by a quarter in 2008, which brought significant contract awards from Airbus and Boeing.
In October 2008 B/E was selected to supply galley systems to the Airbus A350 XWB programme. The galley systems will accommodate the aircraft type's "flex zones", for which airlines can select pre-engineered configurations from a catalogue of options. B/E's valuation of the contract, at more than $1 billion, exceeds that of any other in its history.
The deal extended B/E's involvement in a programme to which it was already due to supply passenger and crew oxygen systems, under a $125 million contract awarded in January 2008. B/E is also providing its Pulse Oxygen system to the 787 programme. That endorsement was secured in 2005.
On top of this, B/E has numerous agreements with international airlines for products on the 787, 747-8 and A380. By the close of 2008, its total order backlog had risen 32% year on year, to $2.9 billion. This reflected the addition of backlog arising from B/E's acquisition of Honeywell Aerospace's fasteners and hardware business, completed in July 2008. However, the backlog included only a "very small portion" of the $2.3 billion racked up in OEM-direct or supplier-furnished equipment (SFE) awards.
Nonetheless, 2009 has brought a predictable decline in backlog, which at the end of the second quarter stood at $2.75 billion.
First-half sales were 23.2% down on the same period of 2008. Commenting on the results, chief executive Amin Khoury warned: "We continue to believe that 2009 will be the trough year for B/E Aerospace bookings, backlog and earnings."
Accordingly, B/E's latest outlook suggests that 2009 revenues will total $1.9 billion, down 10% from 2008's total, and the book-to-build ratio for the year is predicted to be below one.
The revenue decline may continue in 2010, bringing a further 5% drop, warns the company. However, the trend in orders could reverse thanks to "improvement in demand for consumables and spares, the conversion of unbooked SFE awards to bookings, and expected new retrofit orders".
At a glance
- Top 100 rank 41
- HQ Wellington, Florida
- Aero revenues $2.109bn
- Sales growth 25.8%
- Operating margin -1.7%
- ROCE -1.5%
- Employees 6,485
- CEO Amin Khoury
Source: Flight International
