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Bombardier keeps it in the family with new CEO

Transportation giant says q3 sales and profits rose, social sharing.

0Pierre Beaudoin has been tapped to take over as the next chief executive officer at Bombardier Inc., succeeding his father Laurent next June, the Montreal company said Wednesday.

The younger Beaudoin has been with his family's company for 22 years and is currently its executive vice-president and the head of Bombardier Aerospace.

Laurent Beaudoin will hand over the CEO post at the company's next annual meeting on June 4. He will remain on the board of directors as chairman.

The succession announcement came on the day that Bombardier reported an improved third-quarter profit on stronger sales.

The Montreal-based transportation and aerospace giant said it made $91 million US, or five cents a share, up from $74 million, or four cents a share, a year earlier. The company's revenue grew to $4.23 billion US from $3.4 billion US year-over-year.

"Both business groups produced substantial increases in revenues and made steady improvement in profitability," said Laurent Beaudoin in a statement issued prior to the open of stock markets.

Bombardier shares gained 29cents to close at $5.77on the TSX.

After 55 years, chairman emeritus Laurent Beaudoin bids adieu to Bombardier

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MONTREAL — The man who steered Bombardier from snowmobile maker to global transportation giant says the founding family’s voting control protected the company through tough times.

“If we had given up the minority voting shares I think you would not be here today, you would not see Bombardier as it is,” former CEO and chairman Laurent Beaudoin said Thursday at his last Bombardier annual meeting.

After 55 years, chairman emeritus Laurent Beaudoin bids adieu to Bombardier Back to video

He said the recent development of the C Series that nearly drove the company into bankruptcy was difficult, but surviving the 1973 oil crisis was more challenging because Bombardier then only had one product, the Ski-Doo.

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“It’s often during these difficult times that you make the best decisions,” he told reporters after a video tribute that prompted a standing ovation from shareholders.

For example, he said Bombardier got into the public transit business in 1974 at the urging of former Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau, later becoming a global railway manufacturer. It then entered the aerospace business by taking over Canadair in 1986, becoming the world’s third-largest maker of civil aircraft and one of the largest business jet producers.

Those deals took the company from 700 employees in 1963 to 80,000 today including Bombardier’s aerospace and railway businesses plus Bombardier Recreation Products, which was spun off several years ago.

“We passed a difficult period in the last few years but I’m happy to see that now we are looking at growth again and I’m really leaving at the right time. I’m leaving with the recovery,” he said.

The son-in-law of company founder Joseph-Armand Bombardier retired Thursday after 55 years with the company. He took over the Valcourt, Que.,-based company several months after Bombardier died at age 56.

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The Beaudoin-Bombardier family has occasionally been criticized for holding the voting advantage that gives it 10 votes for each Class A share.

Karl Moore, professor at McGill University’s Desautels Faculty of Management, says the family’s long control kept the company in one piece and preserved its global headquarters in Montreal.

“The C Series I don’t think would have been in the air today without the family and indeed I would suspect that the company would have been split up into a couple of parts and sold off except for the family,” he said in an interview.

Moore called Beaudoin one of the world’s best entrepreneurs who successfully transformed it into Canada’s greatest global company.

He said Beaudoin’s biggest failure was trying to replace himself as CEO. He attempted the move several times, by appointing Robert Brown, Paul Tellier, son Pierre Beaudoin and Alain Bellemare.

“It’s hard for one person to be the right CEO through all of that, so I think replacing himself was probably the thing he struggled through the most.”

Beaudoin himself said he wished the company could have retained full control of the C Series program, but added that the sale of a majority stake to Airbus will help the commercial aircraft to reach its full potential.

“In the best of worlds it would have been preferable to continue developing it ourselves, but I think the association of Airbus gives us the real possibility of reducing our costs and to be even more competitive and to aspire to have a bigger market,” he said, adding that he’s happy the technology for the largest plane built in Canada was developed in Quebec.

Beaudoin bid adieu, acknowledging he will miss the action of being involved with the transportation company.

“After 55 years in the company I think it’s time to turn the page and I have other projects that keep me busy.”

Follow @RossMarowits on Twitter.

Companies in this story: (TSX:BBD.B, TSX:DOO)

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A family affair: The dismantling of Bombardier

This article was published more than 5 years ago. Some information may no longer be current.

Laurent Beaudoin chats with his son Pierre prior to the company's annual meeting Thursday, May 3, 2018 in Montreal. The Bombardiers and the Beaudoins seem determined to pick apart their creation bit by bit, and no one can stop them. Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press

Not long ago, Bombardier Inc. billed itself as the world’s third-largest aerospace company, and it was, proudly so. Its lofty status would make Bombardier Quebec’s favourite corporate son and, after the downfall of Nortel Networks and BlackBerry, one of Canada’s few remaining national and global champions. It would never be a Boeing or an Airbus, but it was big enough to fire some rounds into the underbellies of the airborne oligopolists.

As Bombardier expanded in aviation, and trains, the company’s ruling Bombardier-Beaudoin family, equipped with their supervoting shares, vowed to remain in control. And why not? The company was on the rise and both family and public shareholders were reaping rewards.

The shares peaked at $26.30 in 2000. Since then, they have steadily lost altitude. By 2013, Bombardier was a $5 stock. This week, the shares were a few pennies above $2, giving the company a market value of about $5-billion, an insignificant price for what still is ostensibly Canada’s premier high-tech manufacturing company. The reinvented BlackBerry is worth more.

Yet, the Bombardier and Beaudoin families retain an iron grip on their voting shares, their control unassailable even as the company dismantles itself to keep the core alive. Except the core is being dismantled, too.

The picture might have looked a lot different if they had admitted their stewardship of the company had gone from asset to liability and that it was time for another big investor to take a crack at preserving value. But no. They hung on.

In 2016, when Bombardier was getting eaten alive by cost overruns on its C Series passenger jet, Pierre Beaudoin, then executive chairman, now chairman, argued that Bombardier’s dual-class share structure was vital to protect the company’s long-term interests. The Quebec government, of course, applauded the families’ loyalty to their creation and to Montreal. “For the family, the success of this company has always been important,” Mr. Beaudoin said in response to a question at Bombardier’s annual meeting that year. “The family was there in good and bad times. The multiple-voting-right shares enable us to invest in the long term and allow us to protect the company.”

Some protection.

In 2003, Bombardier sold Bombardier Recreational Products, the maker of the original snowmobiles that were invented by Joseph-Armand Bombardier in the mid-1930s. In 2016, Bombardier sold its water-bomber division to Viking Air Ltd., even as climate change was making aerial fire-fighting aircraft more valuable. A year later, the C Series plane, the product that was to launch Bombardier into the global big leagues and dominate the market in the 100-150 seat category, was handed to Airbus, which redubbed it the A220. Next to go was the short-range Q400 turboprop, the one used by Toronto’s Porter Airlines. Earlier this year, the company announced it would sell its big wing-making operations in Northern Ireland.

This week, Bombardier was forced to acknowledge it was in talks to sell its money-losing regional jet business, the maker of small commercial passenger jets that have been compared to flying minivans, to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. of Japan.

When the regional jets are gone, the company’s product portfolio will be limited to business jets and trains, and who knows how long the train division will last as industry consolidation pressure mounts. (In 2015, Bombardier sold a 30-per cent-stake in the train division, known as Bombardier Transportation, to Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec for US$1.5-billion.)

For the Bombardier-Beaudoin family, the good news is they are still in control, in spite of various ultimately failed efforts to dismantle the dual-voting share structure and appoint a non-family member as chairman; the bad news is they are in control of a vastly diminished company that is still a stock-market dog even if it managed to eke out its first annual profit in five years in 2018. At Bombardier, family blood is apparently sacrosanct. The Beaudoins and Bombardiers have not been sent packing in spite of the epic destruction of shareholder value during their watch. Even the injection of fortunes in taxpayer dollars over the years could not stop the decline.

It’s hard to say what would have happened if the families had relinquished control a few years ago, when the C Series jet was going from would-be corporate saviour to potential executioner. Mr. Beaudoin apparently thought the company, in absence of the family’s controlling shares (which give them 50.9 per cent of the voting rights) and boardroom leadership, would be ripped apart by takeover artists, gutting the Quebec work force and hollowing out the company’s precious Montreal headquarters.

But that doomsday scenario, while certainly possible, may not have come to pass. As long as the Bombardiers and Beaudoins remained superglued to the company, strategic investors could not make a play for the company, and the Quebec and federal governments, and the Caisse, effectively became the lenders of last resort. Had they been able to do so, Bombardier may not have turned into the incredible shrinking company. And no doubt the Quebec and federal governments would have placed restrictions on any new owner to keep Bombardier’s assembly sites alive.

As it is, Bombardier is being dismantled and the process may not end with the regional jet sale. Quebec-style family capitalism had built a great company. Now, it’s shrinking a great company. The Bombardiers and the Beaudoins seem determined to pick apart their creation bit by bit, and no one can stop them.

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Laurent Beaudoin

Article by Myriam Fontaine , Laurier Cloutier

Published Online March 4, 2007

Last Edited December 16, 2013

Laurent Beaudoin, business executive (b at Laurier Station, Qc, 13 May 1938). After earning a BA at Nova Scotia's Collège Sainte-Anne, he became a chartered accountant, and graduated with a Master of Commerce from the Université de Sherbrooke. It was there that he would meet his future wife, Claire, daughter of Joseph-Armand BOMBARDIER , who invented the tracked vehicles for land transport on snow, in his Valcourt, Québec workshop.

Laurent Beaudoin began his career in Québec in 1961 in the accounting firm of Beaudoin Morin Dufresne where he built up a practice over a two-year period. He joined Auto-Neige Bombardier in 1963 as comptroller, became General Manager the following year, and President in 1966. A trail blazer, he saw a future in snowmobiling as a sport, and as of 1967 reoriented the company.

In 1974, he initiated diversification in rail passenger transport thanks to a subway contract in Montréal and subsequent contracts in New York and for the tunnel under the English Channel. In 1986, he oversaw BOMBARDIER 's entry into aeronautics through acquisitions: CANADAIR in Montréal; Learjet in the United States; DE HAVILLAND in Ontario; and Shorts in Northern Ireland. Bombardier became the third manufacturer of civil aircraft after Boeing and Airbus, and increased the launching of regional and more comfortable business aircraft in a market that was undergoing massive changes.

Laurent Beaudoin sits on several advisory committees and has received numerous prizes and honorary doctorates. He was named Companion of the Order of Canada (1989) and officier de l'Ordre du Québec (1990). In April 1992, the International Chamber of Commerce gave him the title of International Businessman of the Year for Canada, and in October, the World Trade Institute inducted him into the World Trade Hall of Fame. Laurent Beaudoin is the recipient of numerous national and international awards, among them: the Ernst & Young Lifetime Achievement Award (Quebec, October 2000), and Entrepreneur of the Year awarded by the Canadian Youth Business Foundation. Since June 2000, Laurent Beaudoin has been on the advisory committee of Lazard Canada, and as of 2003, has occupied the position of Chairman of the Board for Bombardier Produits Récréatifs Inc.

External Links

• Joseph-Armand Bombardier Watch the Heritage Minute about Joseph-Armand Bombardier from Historica Canada. See also related online learning resources.

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May 20, 2019

Business jets and services

Bombardier Welcomes First Global 6500 Aircraft into its State-of-the-art Completion Facility in Montreal

• First production Global 6500 aircraft moves into the Laurent Beaudoin Completion Centre, as the newest member of the Global family advances towards entry-into-service as planned later this year
• Ninety per cent of total flight test complete, wing and engine in final stages of validation
• All testing on first flight test vehicle is complete; aircraft is retired
• The Global 6500 aircraft offers greater range, a larger cabin and a smoother ride than competitor aircraft in the same class
• Featuring Bombardier’s patented and innovative Nuage seating, the spacious cabin is designed for an unprecedented level of comfort

Bombardier is pleased to announce that the first Global 6500 aircraft was inducted in its state-of-the-art completion centre in Montreal moving the new addition to the Global family closer to entry-into-service later this year.

“As the Global 6500 jet progresses towards entry-into-service, we couldn’t be happier to welcome the first production aircraft in our state-of-the-art facilities in Montreal, where high-precision completion work is being carried out on the new business jet,” said Julien Boudreault, Vice President, Program Management, Bombardier Aviation. “With the longest range, largest cabin in its class and smoothest ride, the Global 6500 boasts an innovative interior design and enhanced performance, offering the convenience and state-of-the-art technology our customers have come to expect from the Global family.”

Flight testing is progressing well, with 90 per cent of flight testing completed at Bombardier’s world-class test centre in Wichita, Kansas. The first flight test vehicle (FTV) has successfully completed all mission testing and is now retired. The Rolls-Royce Pearl 15 engine, the most advanced in business aviation, is delivering on the unmatched total performance expected and FTV2 and FTV3 are performing exceptionally well throughout the rigorous flight testing program.

The purpose-built Rolls-Royce Pearl 15 engines and a new wing make the Global 6500 aircraft faster and more efficient. The Global 6500 aircraft boast optimal operating costs that outmatch all other aircraft in their class, along with the built-in systems redundancy and robustness for which Bombardier Global aircraft are renowned.

Taking total performance to new heights, the Global 6500 aircraft delivers a range increase of up to 1,300 nautical miles when operating out of hot weather and high-altitude conditions, thanks to increased engine thrust and improved overall fuel efficiency. With a top speed of Mach .90, the Global 6500 aircraft can connect Hong Kong or Singapore to London and Toluca to Madrid non-stop. The re-imagined wing brings flexibility and redefined aerodynamics to ensure a smooth ride from takeoff to landing.

The Global 6500 aircraft offers a stunning redesigned cabin with exclusive features that are as innovative as they are luxurious. The Global 6500 business jet also debuts the Nuage chaise, a unique seating innovation, which adds new dimensions to the conference suite as a lounge chair that converts into a flat surface for sleeping or banquet-style dining around the table. Bombardier's patented Nuage seat, meticulously designed for maximum comfort, is also exclusive to the new Global aircraft family. With its distinctive technologies engineered for maximum comfort and effortless movement, the Nuage seating is ideally suited for long-range flights.

About Bombardier

With over 68,000 employees, Bombardier is a global leader in the transportation industry, creating innovative and game-changing planes and trains. Our products and services provide world-class transportation experiences that set new standards in passenger comfort, energy efficiency, reliability and safety.

Headquartered in Montreal, Canada, Bombardier has production and engineering sites in 28 countries as well as a broad portfolio of products and services for the business aviation, commercial aviation and rail transportation markets. Bombardier shares are traded on the Toronto Stock Exchange (BBD). In the fiscal year ended December 31, 2018, Bombardier posted revenues of $16.2 billion US. The company is recognized on the 2019 Global 100 Most Sustainable Corporations in the World Index. News and information are available at bombardier.com or follow us on Twitter @Bombardier .

Notes to Editors

Visit the Bombardier Business Aircraft website for more information on our industry-leading products and services.

Follow @Bombardierjets on Twitter to receive the latest news and updates from Bombardier Business Aircraft.

To receive our press releases, please visit the RSS Feed section.

Bombardier, Global, Global 6500 and Nuage  are registered or unregistered trademarks of Bombardier Inc. or its subsidiaries.

For Information

Clémence Godfroy Bombardier Aviation  +1 514-855-5001 #64024 [email protected]

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Bombardier inaugurates new Aviator Lounge in Monaco

Estimated reading time 7 minutes, 11 seconds.

Bombardier has opened the new Aviator Lounge by Bombardier, strategically located at the Monaco Yacht Club. H.S.H. Prince Albert II of Monaco officially inaugurated the lounge in the company of Pierre Beaudoin, Bombardier’s chairman of the board and other Bombardier’s senior leadership members.

The new lounge will provide a visually stunning, welcoming space for visitors to learn about Bombardier’s aircraft, legacy, and innovations. Guests of this exclusive lounge will be hosted by Bombardier’s regional sales team.

“We are immensely proud to reaffirm our presence in the region with the opening of the magnificent new Aviator Lounge by Bombardier, the first tailor-made space of this kind by any jet manufacturer. We are honoured to be so firmly anchored within the Monaco Yacht Club, a historic and prestigious institution at the heart of the Principality of Monaco,” said Emmanuel Bornand, vice president of international sales, Bombardier.

“The Aviator Lounge is a unique meeting place. Thanks to its location, it symbolizes the meeting of the land, the sea and the air. Most importantly, it provides a welcoming place for us to meet with anyone who wants to stop by to learn about Bombardier’s groundbreaking research in sustainability, about the eight decades of innovation that resulted in uncompromising, record-breaking performance of our jets, and our pioneering research into more sustainable ways to fly.”

The Aviator Lounge complements Bombardier’s already strong presence across the globe. In Europe, members of Bombardier’s sales team are strategically located across the continent to be available to clients wherever they are. A broad network of service facilities includes two service centres, in London – Biggin Hill and Berlin, and five Line Maintenance Stations. These include stations at the Nice airport, the second busiest in Europe in terms of business aviation, and at Le Bourget airport in Paris.

An innovative and welcoming design

The Aviator Lounge, which already reflects Bombardier’s new brand identity unveiled only weeks ago, is a design masterpiece. It was conceived by the renowned Paris-based architect Andrea Mosca. Working from a blank canvas, he conceptualized an inviting space that is centered on Bombardier’s core value: the importance of authentic, personal, family-like relationships.

Mosca found ingenious ways to integrate Bombardier’s most important innovations and achievements into the design, both as their symbols and as conversation starters. The welcome desk in the shape of an aircraft wing hints at Bombardier’s legacy of innovation in wing design.

It evokes the winglet that was first used on  Learjet  aircraft before becoming prevalent in aircraft design. It is also a tribute to Bombardier’s  Smooth Flĕx Wing , an engineering marvel behind the legendary smooth flight and uncompromising performance of Bombardier  Global  aircraft, which can perform in all types of weather and are the largest to land in airports like Gstaad’s Saanen.

A stunning lightning feature resembling an engine fan blisk hangs from the ceiling, a reminder that Bombardier was the first in business aviation to use this advanced engine type.

Bombardier’s EcoJet research platform, through which the company is testing aerodynamic, propulsion and other enhancements with the potential to reduce an aircraft’s greenhouse gas emissions by 50 per cent, is prominently displayed as well.

It serves as a symbol of Bombardier’s longstanding dedication and commitment to finding tangible ways to reduce aviation’s environmental footprint.

Stunning photographs of Bombardier aircraft by the renowned French photographer Guillaume Plisson grace the walls and further elevate the space. The images were taken as part of his recent extensive collaboration with Bombardier that resulted in a host of evocative images that add to the company’s new visual identity.

This was the first foray into the world of aviation for Plisson, one of the world’s most prominent maritime and yacht photographers.

New Assouline Ultimate book celebrates Bombardier’s heritage

During the inauguration of the Aviator Lounge, guests were also able to see for the first time the brand-new book  Bombardier , by the acclaimed publishing house Assouline.

The book, an Assouline Ultimate edition, charts Bombardier’s history from its beginnings in Valcourt, Québec (Canada), where the legendary innovator Joseph-Armand Bombardier founded the company in the 1920s after inventing a first snowmobile, until its current evolution as a company focused solely on designing, manufacturing and servicing the world’s best business jets.

The deeply researched book is complemented with insights from Laurent Beaudoin, Joseph-Armand Bombardier’s son in law, who helmed the company from 1966 to 2008, and his grandson Pierre Beaudoin, Bombardier’s current chairman of the board.

Thanks to fascinating archival photography and new visuals by Guillaume Plisson, readers will be treated to a window seat to the fascinating history and legacy of the legendary Canadian business jet company. The book will be on sale from June 2024.

This press release was prepared and distributed by Bombardier.

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