MD Helicopters' Schaeken: "Reality was never as bad as the rumors."

By ANN Correspondent Juan Jiménez, at Heli Expo 2003

Most people agree that virtually no one learns life's hard lessons by hearing about them from someone else. The average person has to go through the hard knocks in order to learn those tough lessons from experience, not lectures. That's when the most important part of recovering from your mistakes takes place, hopefully: recognizing those mistakes, admitting them, apologizing, preparing a plan to recover and carrying through on the plan.

After lackluster 2002, CEO intends to lead company into slow but sure recovery

MD Helicopters' CEO Henk Schaeken did just that this weekend at Heli Expo 2003, during a press conference in which the plain-spoken chief executive laid it all on the line after a disastrous 2002 in which the company delivered a mere 15 aircraft: five MD500Es (right), four Explorers, four MD520Ns (bottom), and two MD600Ns. Let's face it: to say that it was a bad year for MD Helicopters would probably qualify as the understatement of the year.

Were it not for the cooperation of the company's vendors and suppliers, as well as the unwavering support of their parent company, RDM Technology, a subsidiary of RDM Holding N.V. in the Netherlands Antilles, 2002 might have been a significantly worse year for MDHI.

Schaeken doesn't mince words about it when he states that "We're not doing that well, but neither is the industry." However, while that statement is factual, much of the trouble MDHI faced in 2002 was related to delays in the delivery of eight MD Explorers to the Dutch National Police, and another five to the German State Police. In addition, a further order for ten MD600Ns (right) to the Turkish National Police was delayed as well, due to export financing issues.

The company began delivering the Dutch and German Explorers this month; the remainder are expected to be delivere by year's end. The Turkish MD600N shipment is also scheduled for delivery this year. Schaeken predicts that 43 deliveries will take place in 2003, of which 37 are firm orders at press time. However, that number includes the German, Dutch and Turkish aircraft, which means that, in reality, only 20 of those 43 predicted deliveries represent new orders for 2003.

Schaeken takes a very pragmatic view of the problems the company suffered in 2002: there's nothing he can do to change things, so he's putting them behind and focusing on making sure that the same mistakes are not repeated. RDM Holdin NV's CEO Joep van den Nieuwenhuyzen was present at the conference and stated that he is still as optimistic about the future of the MDHI subsidiary as he was when they bought the product line from Boeing in 1999 - so optimistic that he has already infused the company with a very significant amount of cash to make sure that it not only remains on solid footing, but that it can accelerate pending deliveries.

In particular, both he and Schaeken believe that the opening of operations this year in China may double total aircraft deliveries, as well as increase their 31% and 23% market share in the single- and twin-engine public service and national security markets.

FMI: www.mdhelicopters.com