Boeing Company (BA)

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"When asked about Boeing’s outsourcing strategy, Calhoun recently told CNBC, “did it go too far? Yeah, it probably did. But now it’s here and now, I’ve got to deal with it.”

A deal would be a strategic reversal. Boeing sold the Wichita plant in a push to focus on final assembly. In recent years, that facility has been plagued by production problems and quality lapses that have slowed production and left the plane maker short of jets it promised to deliver to airlines.

Spirit has struggled financially for years. Last year it secured a $100 million cash infusion from Boeing as part of a deal aimed at stabilizing operations. It has been in negotiations for months with Airbus over a commercial agreement, with the two sides so far unable to reach a deal.

In February, Spirit said it was withholding financial guidance for the year until it has clarity on Boeing’s effort to get approval from regulators to ramp up 737 MAX production, which U.S. regulators capped following the Alaska Air incident.

Acquiring Spirit would leave Boeing’s brass with the task of cleaning up its operations at the same time that Boeing’s own quality-control systems have been questioned by regulators. The Federal Aviation Administration has given Boeing 90 days from this week to come up with a quality-improvement plan.

Boeing executives have said privately that fixing up Spirit as a separate entity has proven tough."

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/boeing-in-talks-to-buy-troubled-supplier-spirit-aerosystems/