Moggiee, I guess you mean they make more money leasing them than they did when they were trading them when they were still building them? They lost a lot of money in the 80s when they did some major deals with recourse to BAe if the airlines defaulted - which many did, hence they set up their Asset Management Organisation which has kept the aircraft in the air and brought in money, but not sure that the billions lost have been recovered.
By the way the joke in Flight this week is:
"What do you get if you take 2 away from 146?"
"148!!"
Anyone remember BAE's NRA which was basically a twin engined 146 development, before they copped out and went for the Avro RJ instead?