Quebec is putting money back into the old CSeries. The Legault government will invest US$300 million in Airbus A220 aircraft, which are assembled in Mirabel in the Laurentians. For its part, Airbus is investing $900 million in this program.
Prime Minister François Legault and Economy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon made the announcement in Montreal on Friday.
By injecting additional funds into the program, the government wants to avoid seeing its investment diluted by a next round of financing led by Airbus, to which Bombardier sold the program in 2018.
Before the announcement, Quebec held a 25% stake in the aircraft and the remaining 75% belonged to Airbus. The French company had until 2026 to buy out the government shares. However, it did not expect the program to be profitable before 2025.
Quebec had already invested $1.3 billion in the program. As of March 31, 2021, Investissement Québec estimated the value of this investment to be nil.
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