Originally Posted by
pr00ne
BAE, who by the way are far from dead in the water, is no where near the whole of the UK aerospace industry, which by however you try and count it, IS the largest aerospace industry on the planet, so hardly “a bit player!”
Its not far off the whole of the UK aerospace industry, indeed the UK defence industry and has been avaricious in its acquisition of other businesses who were previously Prime Contractors to HMG in their own right be it in armoured vehicles, radar systems, aircraft, submarines and shipbuilding.
What might be described as The Three E's - the Microsoft School of business development... Embrace, Envelope and Eliminate. Look at all the other defence contractors that have been swallowed up by BAE since privatisation. Has it been good for the industry as a whole to have one monolothic player? Arguably not.
BAE's interest shows itself to be milking dry whatever contracts are dead certs until delivery is complete and once it is, the facility and its personnel are disposed of. It did so with Hatfield, it did so with Woodford and it will do with Warton once the Typhoon deal is up and Brough when Hawk 200 is done. And those are just the ones that come immediately to mind.
Problem is with BAE is that even though it only forms about 20% of its turnover, if that, HMG has been in thrall to placing far too many of its eggs into this particular basket and they've pretty much had HMG over a barrel for a number of reasons for far too long.
Are they dead in the water? Not sure. Depends on how much The Donald decides to buy BAE, compared to other US contractors. They might not be dead in the water yet, but they're certainly treading water and the immersion suit isnt going to keep them going for ever.