Stopped Manufacturing Jets Following Bankruptcy

An "undisclosed" party is reportedly in talks with Beechcraft for the company's Hawker 4000 and Premier lines that went out of production when Beechcraft emerged from bankruptcy. At the NBAA convention in Las Vegas last week, Beechcraft CEO Bill Boisture said the company is "dangerously" close to a deal that would include Plant 3 in Wichita, according to a report in The Wichita Eagle.

While Boisture (pictured) would not name the company with which Beechcraft is negotiating, he did say they are intending to "go into the composite component manufacturing business." He said he did not think the company would produce completed jet aircraft.

The assets are up for sale as a condition of Beechcraft's emergence from chapter 11 bankruptcy last year.

There have also been reports that the entire company is for sale, with Embraer, Textron, and India's Mahindra & Mahindra all being mentioned as potential buyers. But Embraer said through spokesman Bob Stangerone at NBAA that the Brazilian planemaker was not in the running. "We have no interest in acquiring Beechcraft," he said. Boisture would only attribute the reports to the "rumor mill" running in the industry.

Asked whether there will be a single-engine King Air turboprop in the company's future, Boisture would only say that the company was researching whether to design and develop its next product, or to "acquire an existing design we could modify."

FMI: www.beechcraft.com