{"id":14964,"date":"2018-04-12T16:53:59","date_gmt":"2018-04-12T15:53:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=14964"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:59:03","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:59:03","slug":"airbus-fears-melrose-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=14964","title":{"rendered":"Airbus\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 fears over Melrose plans"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Unite members are not the only ones anxious about Melrose\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s takeover of engineering firm GKN. Reiterating its worries yesterday (April 11), GKN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s biggest customer Airbus told investors that the firm \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Europe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s largest plane-maker \u00e2\u20ac\u201c had continuing concerns over Melrose\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plans.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe did not take a hard-nose decision yet, but we have concerns,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Airbus chief executive Tom Enders said at the firm\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s annual meeting in Amsterdam on Wednesday (April 11). \u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clear our aviation business is a long-term business and private equity is relatively volatile, short term. We certainly prefer industrial investors who commit to the business on a longer-term scale than on a short-term scale.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Enders\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 speech comes just two weeks after Airbus said, days before the takeover was approved on March 29, that it would be \u00e2\u20ac\u015bpractically impossible\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 to give new work to GKN if Melrose became the new owners.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe nature of our industry is one that requires a commitment to long-term investment and strategic vision,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Chief operating officer of Airbus\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s commercial aircraft division Tom Williams told the Financial Times at the time.<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe industry does not lend itself to shorter-term financial investment which naturally reduces R&D budgets and limits vital innovation. It would be practically impossible for us to give any new work to GKN under such an ownership model when we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know who will be the long-term investor.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Sales to Airbus account for about 20 per cent of GKN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s aerospace business.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner highlighted Airbus\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 importance, saying that it is \u00e2\u20ac\u015bGKN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s single biggest customer whose close working relationship on major civil and defence aerospace projects sustains thousands of highly skilled jobs.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAirbus\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s repeated warnings should have alarm bells ringing furiously in Whitehall and highlights the need for business secretary Greg Clark to call the bid in,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said.<\/p>\n

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Unite is now seeking meetings with both the business secretary and defence minister Gavin Williams to lobby the government to intervene on national security grounds since GKN makes parts for the Chinook, F-35 and Tornado, among other military aircraft.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Clark said that the government would consider intervening once it has assessed evidence from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and other parties.<\/p>\n

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Lord Heseltine, a former defence minister, has been one of many prominent voices who have supported blocking the takeover on defence grounds, saying last month that \u00e2\u20ac\u015bno other country would let this happen.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Airbus\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 second intervention <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Airbus\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 second intervention yesterday comes as the latest company accounts reveal that Melrose\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s top bosses earned more than \u00c2\u0141170m<\/a> last year alone \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and stand to gain even more post-takeover.<\/p>\n

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Unite assistant general secretary Tony Burke said that the eye-watering earnings of Melrose bosses show that \u00e2\u20ac\u015bMelrose has always been a company that exists solely to make money for its executives and their shareholders \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they are not an engineering firm like GKN is.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bOur big concern now is how long is Melrose actually going to be in the automotive and aerospace industries. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve said they would commit to staying five years in aerospace but it is our view that the sector requires a lot longer than that \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 15 to 20 years \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to bring in the necessary investment to be successful.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

Burke said Unite is now lobbying for a wholesale overhaul of the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s notoriously weak takeover laws.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bAbove all there must be laws in place to take into account the national interest, our manufacturing sector and Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wider industrial strategy,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThe situation we have now is that the UK is essentially like a shop \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the doors are wide open, nobody\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in the shop, and the keys to the safe are hanging up behind the till saying \u00e2\u20ac\u0098take me.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 We must have stronger legislation to protect our industries and jobs.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unite members are not the only ones anxious about Melrose\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s takeover of engineering firm GKN. Reiterating its worries yesterday (April 11), GKN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s biggest customer Airbus told investors that the firm \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Europe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s largest plane-maker \u00e2\u20ac\u201c had continuing concerns over Melrose\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plans.   \u00e2\u20ac\u015bWe did not take a hard-nose decision yet, but we have concerns,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Airbus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8596,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[624,865,690],"wps_subtitle":"Investment strategy quizzed by plane-builder giant","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14964"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14964"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26278,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14964\/revisions\/26278"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}