NEW YORK: Boeing announced on Saturday it was pulling out of a $4.2 billion deal to acquire the commercial plane division of its Brazilian rival Embraer, the latest in a string of setbacks for the troubled US aviation giant.

The companies had planned to form a joint venture in which Boeing would take an 80 percent stake in that division. The deal had been due to be finalized no later than Friday.

But Boeing said Saturday it was exercising its right to pull out of a preliminary deal reached in July 2018. It said in a statement, “Embraer did not satisfy the necessary conditions.”

“Boeing has worked diligently over more than two years to finalize its transaction with Embraer,” said Marc Allen, the Boeing executive who led the joint venture plan.

He said that over the past several months the companies held extensive talks on what he termed unsatisfied conditions in the initial accord.

“We all aimed to resolve those by the initial termination date, but it didn’t happen,” Allen said, without explaining what the unresolved issues were.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2020