The Bombardier Story

"Bombardier was under attach again. This time, the flack was coming from the president of Berlin--based Adtranz, the rail equipment subsidiary of DaimlerChrysler AG. In 1999, he traveled to Toronto and made a speech in which he warned that Adtranz was coming to challenge Montreal--based Bombardier on its home turf of North America. His motive was retaliation: he did not like Bombardiera s invasion of Adtranza s European markets. So he was going to put the upstart from the hinterlands in its place. a The major player in the United States of the future will be, I believe, Adtranz,a he predicted." "In the spring of 2001, Bombardier acquired Adtranz. The purchase more than doubled annual revenues at Bombardiera s rail equipment division and catapulted Bombardier into the number one spot in the railway equipment industry, ahead of the rail divisions of Franco--British conglomerate Alstom and German industrial giant Siemens." "What made Bombardiera s progression in rail equipment all the more remarkable is that it occurred while yet another progression was under way at Bombardiera s aerospace group.
In 1986, the company decided to enter the aerospace sector by acquiring business--jet maker Canadair Ltd. of Montreal. This was followed by acquisitions of several other ailing aerospace companies, including world--renowned Learjet. Turning around these floundering assets, Bombardier came out of nowhere to become, in a little more than a dozen years, the third--largest member of the civil aerospace manufacturing industry. Only US giant Boeing and European colossus, the Airbus consortium, are larger." -- from The Bombardier Story