Boeing to purchase Spirit AeroSystems in $4.7B+ deal

Beleaguered aerospace and defense giant Boeing announced Monday it has entered an agreement to reacquire Boeing spinoff company Spirit Aerosystems in a $4.7 billion, all-stock transaction. The Fortune 500 company headquartered in Arlington County will also assume Spirit’s net debt, so the deal’s total value is approximately $8.3 billion, Boeing said in its announcement.

Spirit supplied the fuselage in the Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 plane that experienced a midair blowout of a 4-foot wall panel in January, and as a result, the Federal Aviation Administration has increased oversight over both companies.

“We believe this deal is in the best interest of the flying public, our airline customers, the employees of Spirit and Boeing, our shareholders and the country more broadly,” Boeing President and CEO Dave Calhoun said in a statement. “By reintegrating Spirit, we can fully align our commercial production systems, including our Safety and Quality Management Systems, and our workforce to the same priorities, incentives and outcomes – centered on safety and quality.”

Spirit — with locations in Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas — spun off from Boeing in 2005, and remained closely aligned with its former parent company, although Spirit has made fuselage for Boeing competitor Airbus too in recent years. Monday’s transaction is expected to close in mid-2025, upon the sale of Spirit’s operations related to Airbus contracts, Boeing said. Spirit plans to sell its operations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Malaysia.

Monday’s announcement comes just before the Justice Department’s Saturday deadline to decide whether to file criminal charges against Boeing for violating a 2021 agreement following crashes of two 737 Max planes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people. According to Reuters, federal prosecutors met with Boeing representatives and relatives of crash victims ahead of the deadline.

The all-stock transaction is valued at $37.25 per share, and each share of Spirit common stock will be exchanged for a number of Boeing common stock shares equal to an exchange ratio between 0.18 and 0.25, according to Boeing.

Following the Jan. 6 door plug blowout, Boeing has suffered financially — with no orders for the 737 Max airplane in April and May, and only four new orders for planes in May. Calhoun, who joined Boeing as its CEO in 2020, announced in March he would step down at the end of the year, part of an overall management shakeup in the wake of the Alaska Airlines incident.