Boeing to Sell Fuselage Plant To Canadian Investment Firm

The Wall Street Journal 02/22/05
(Copyright (c) 2005, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

Boeing Co. announced an agreement to sell its Wichita, Kan., manufacturing plant to a Canadian investment group for $900 million, the first sale by the Chicago aerospace giant of major facility in order to cut production costs.

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The deal for the plant, which produces the fuselage for Boeing's 737 airliner and cockpit sections and engine cowling for most of the company's other jetliners, also includes associated production facilities in Oklahoma.

The sale, which is expected to close in the second quarter, would for the first time hand control of a major portion of Boeing's bread-and-butter business to an outside company.

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Boeing employs 12,400 people in the region and has a total world-wide force of almost 157,000.

Seems like a strange choice/strategy...