Boeing closes Spirit AeroSystems purchase in major supply chain realignment

The Boeing logo is displayed at the company's factory, Sept. 24, 2024, in Renton, Wash. (AP Photo/Lindsey Wasson, File)

SEATTLE — Boeing said on Monday it has closed its $4.7 billion takeover of Spirit AeroSystems, re-acquiring the bulk of the world’s largest independent wing and fuselage maker.

The U.S. planemaker’s European rival Airbus also announced Monday it had completed the acquisition of parts of Spirit in its supply chain. The aerostructure producer’s operations in Subang, Malaysia, were spun off to Composites Technology Research Malaysia as part of Spirit’s dismantling. A subsidiary, Fiber Materials, was sold earlier this year to Tex-Tech Industries.

Boeing’s acquisition includes all of Spirit’s Boeing-related commercial operations along with portions of the company’s operations in Belfast, Northern Ireland, which will operate as an independent subsidiary branded as Short Brothers.

Boeing shares rose 2 per cent on the news, while Airbus was up nearly 1 per cent.

The deal, announced in July last year, is valued at $8.3 billion overall. It is a major realignment of the commercial aerospace supply chain and gives Airbus and Boeing direct control over problem-plagued parts of their supply chains.

In recent years, the two planemakers have propped up the financially struggling company, which has been cited as one source of delays on several jetliner programs, including Boeing’s 737 MAX jet and Airbus’ A350 and A220. Reducing manufacturing quality problems with the fuselages has been a key focus for Boeing in its efforts to stabilize 737 production.

Spirit was created in 2005, when Boeing sold its operations in Oklahoma and Kansas to the investment firm Onex. Spirit makes 737 fuselages in Wichita, which are moved by rail to Boeing’s plant in Renton, Washington.

In an effort to expand its customer base beyond Boeing, Spirit bought or opened facilities in Africa, Asia, Europe, and elsewhere in the U.S. Airbus will take over operations in North Carolina, Northern Ireland, Scotland, France, and Morocco.

Airbus said it will receive compensation of $439 million as part of the transaction.

In early December, the Federal Trade Commission said the deal could proceed, as long as Boeing carried out the divestments negotiated earlier this year with Airbus and Composites Technology Research Malaysia and Spirit remained a supplier for Boeing’s competitors for future military aircraft programs.

Without those conditions, the FTC worried that Boeing’s takeover of Spirit would give it unfair influence over competition.

In October, Boeing secured EU antitrust approval after agreeing to sell some Spirit businesses to address competition concerns.

The deal, under which 15,000 Spirit employees become part of Boeing, could affect the planemaker’s strained labor relations if the about 6,000 members of International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers at Spirit rejoin the union’s District 751, which they belonged to until the 2005 sale.

Most of Boeing’s commercial aircraft production was brought to a stop during a seven-week-long strike last year by District 751 members in the Pacific Northwest.

(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington; Parth Chandna and Aishwarya Jain in Bengaluru, and Dan Catchpole in Seattle, editing by Deepa Babington and Leroy Leo)