'Overstretched and perennially short of cash for its expensive aircraft-development projects, Bombardier has been forced to sell assets and reduce its global ambitions for the past 15 years.'

The great unravelling of Bombardier Inc. continues. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Once again, Bombardier is slimming down. The Montreal-based aircraft and train business announced this week it was cutting 5,000 jobs and selling its turboprop-aircraft manufacturing and flight-training operations.

It’s the repeat of a story that’s been going on for a long time. Overstretched and perennially short of cash for its expensive aircraft-development projects, Bombardier has been forced to sell assets and reduce its global ambitions for the past 15 years.

In 2003, as Bombardier struggled with debt and over-spending on new projects, Paul Tellier, who was brought in as CEO to clean up the company, announced it was getting out of its foundational business, the division making Ski-Doo snowmobiles, Sea-Doo watercraft and other recreational products.

Tellier said at the time that the sale of the Ski-Doo division “conveys a very strong message that we will do whatever has to be done to relaunch this company.” Sound familiar? Bombardier Recreational Products was soon spun off and sold to institutional investors and the Bombardier family. Tellier didn’t last long and was turfed the following year after disagreement with the Bombardier-Beaudoin family.

The Bombardier garage sale has continued apace, with the sale of its fighter-jet-maintenance business, its military pilot-training business and, earlier this year, the $635-million sale of its Downsview airport site in Toronto, which appears to have more value for its real estate potential than as a place to manufacture aircraft.

Then, of course, there was the biggest sale of all, which ended up being more of a donation: the takeover of the C-Series passenger-aircraft program by Airbus earlier this year. Investors, politicians and the public thought, wrongly, that the shrinking had finally ended. Optimists thought the bleeding was over and that Bombardier, still holding a minority stake in the C-Series, would turn into a stable, predictably profitable business.

It was not to be.

While profit in the latest quarter has improved, its cash-flow situation continues to get worse. The company will only be able to reach its target of breaking even on a cash-flow basis by including the Downsview airport sale in its numbers, which wasn’t the original plan.

Bombardier inherited Downsview when it bought the old de Havilland aircraft business in 1992. Much of that business is now gone, with the Twin Otter brand sold to Viking Air in 2006, and Thursday’s sale of Bombardier’s Q400 turboprop business to Viking, as well.

The stock market punished Bombardier for its latest announcement, pushing down its stock by 24 per cent in one day, almost erasing the gains it made after the sale to Airbus.

Basically, Bombardier will soon no longer be a maker of commercial aircraft for airlines. The C-Series, dubbed the Airbus A-220, is gone, as is the Q400 turboprop, and the company is “exploring strategic options” for its remaining unprofitable CRJ regional jet business. That’s business talk for looking for a buyer or another way of somehow getting out of the business.

What will be left after this continuing selloff? Basically, Bombardier will remain a maker of business jets and passenger trains. Bombardier has an attractive range of business jets, up to and including its new Global 7500 series, but it’s a very cyclical business, sensitive to the vagaries of the world economy. And competition with the likes of Gulfstream is fierce.

Bombardier continues to be challenged in the rail business by its difficulty keeping to delivery promises, and the shadows of corruption investigations over old sales to South Africa and Azerbaijan — allegations Bombardier vehemently denies. But more seriously, Bombardier has become a peanut in the train industry when compared to competitors from China and the recent European combination of Siemens and Alstom. Some pundits have even suggested that Bombardier should bail out of the business and sell it for a good price to the Chinese.

But what of all those divested businesses? The Q400 turboprop looks as though it will now be in very good hands. Viking Air, privately held by a member of the wealthy Thomson family, has been an excellent steward of the Twin Otter, and there’s no reason it can’t make the Q400 into a profitable niche business based in Canada.

Likewise, the pilot-training business will also have a secure future. Montreal-based CAE may garner fewer headlines than Bombardier, but it’s a world-beating aeronautics firm that specializes in simulation and pilot training and makes consistent profits, as well, without constantly returning to government for bailouts.

And then there’s BRP Inc., the old Bombardier recreational-products division that was sold off by Tellier 15 years ago. BRP went public in 2013 and it’s been doing great, expanding its product lines and growing sales profitably. Investors have made plenty of money on its shares, and its market capitalization is now at $5.3 billion, not far off from the total value of its much bigger, older parent, Bombardier.

As for the C-Series, it’s still being produced at Mirabel, and with the Airbus imprimatur, it could become a hot seller, providing continued work to highly skilled Quebec aerospace workers.

The news is far from bad. Ownership is important, but it’s not everything. It was nice when Canada could look to Bombardier as a homegrown aerospace multinational, but its time may have passed.

It’s important that taxpayers get repaid for their investments and that good jobs are retained, but if the company’s existing business units can survive and thrive under different ownership, nobody should shed a tear for the eventual breakup of Bombardier Inc.

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