EoW January 2009

Tribune reporter Julie Johnsson noted that Boeing has already provided $9.5 billion in “backstop financing,” which enables customers to go ahead with aircraft purchases until their loans come through from banks or leasing companies. But company officials said that, through its commercial finance arm, the aerospace giant was also willing to become lender of last resort for airlines that cannot obtain credit through conventional channels. Boeing Capital Corp could tap $1.5 billion of unused credit, the parent company said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Analysts do not expect Boeing to oblige every airline that asks for credit. “It will be for their best customers,” Michael Derchin, airline and aerospace analyst for FTN Midwest Securities (Cleveland), told Ms Johnsson. “It’s not for everybody.” In other news of Boeing, on 1 ❈ ❈ st November the company and its satellite manufacturing unit were ordered to pay more than $236 million in punitive damages to ICO Global Communications as a result of a long-running legal dispute over a proposed satellite communications network. The award came on top of the more than $370 million in compensatory damages Boeing was ordered to pay ICO the previous week, in the same case. Boeing said it would seek an appeal. The dispute centres on a $2 billion contract for 12 satellites placed in 1995 by ICO (Reston, Virginia) with Hughes Electronics, which was acquired by Boeing in the year 2000. According to arguments in the case, only one satellite was successfully launched. Another exploded on sendoff, and ten others are incomplete and in storage. In brief . . . Over the past year, California – the biggest market in the ❈ ❈ US for solar power, with more than 33,000 installations – has experienced an epidemic of burglaries of solar panels, some of which wind up on Internet auction sites. In one report, from San Jose, the headquarters of a solar installation business was struck by thieves who took more than $30,000 worth of panels from the roof. Noting that the panels were expertly disassembled, the owner termed the theft“the crime of the future.” According to the energy and environment blog Green Inc such thefts are definitely not for the amateur. In “The Shocking Truth about Solar Panel Theft,” posted last fall, Kate Galbraith noted that, although the panels can be removed without difficulty with basic tools, “anyone cutting the wrong wires runs the risk of a nasty jolt.” Solar panels are high voltage, and their removal – even at night, during downtime – entails physical as well as legal risk.

Automotive

The automobile industry of the US is in desperate trouble, largely of its own making. What is to be done? “Are the Big Three worth saving?” The question was put by Los Angeles Times staff writer Ken Bensinger in late October of 2008. The downward spiral of the US auto industry was accelerating. To save itself, General Motors was seeking a merger with Chrysler.

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EuroWire – January 2009