Bombardier Inc and CDPQ Joint Conference Call to Discuss the Definitive Agreement of CDPQ Acquiring Bombardier Transportation (Investment) UK Ltd - English Call
Nov 19, 2015 AM EST
BBD.B.TO - Bombardier Inc
Bombardier Inc and CDPQ Joint Conference Call to Discuss the Definitive Agreement of CDPQ Acquiring Bombardier Transportation (Investment) UK Ltd - English Call
Nov 19, 2015 / 03:00PM GMT
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Corporate Participants
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* Yan Lapointe
Bombardier Inc. - Manager, IR
* Alain Bellemare
Bombardier Inc. - President & CEO
* Michael Sabia
Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec - President & CEO
* John Di Bert
Bombardier Inc. - CFO & SVP
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Conference Call Participants
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* Walter Spracklin
RBC Capital Markets - Analyst
* Cameron Doerksen
National Bank Financial - Analyst
* Doug Carson
Bank of America Merrill Lynch - Analyst
* Benoit Poirier
Desjardins Capital Markets - Analyst
* Alma Habibi
JP Morgan - Analyst
* Chris Murray
AltaCorp Capital - Analyst
* Editor
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Presentation
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Operator [1]
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(spoken in foreign language) Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to this joint conference call organized by Bombardier and Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec.
(spoken in foreign language) Please be advised that this call is being recorded.
(spoken in foreign language) I would now like to turn the meeting over to Mr. Yan Lapointe, Manager of Investor Relations for Bombardier. Yan Lapointe, please go ahead.
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Yan Lapointe, Bombardier Inc. - Manager, IR [2]
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Thank you, [Moda]. Good morning, everyone. (spoken in foreign language) This joint management discussion has been arranged to review the details of CDPQ's $1.5 billion investment for 30% equity stake in Bombardier Transportation, newly created holding company. We will invite institutional investors and financial analysts to ask your questions following management's remark. Second question period intended for the media will also take place immediately after at the end of the call.
Today, Alain Bellemare, President and Chief Executive Officer of Bombardier Inc. and Michael Sabia, President and Chief Executive Officer, Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec will start with the brief introduction and will then take your questions regarding the investment announced today.
This conference call is broadcast live on the Internet and is also translated into French and English. For copies of our press release or to retrieve the webcast archive of this call, which will be available later today, please visit our website at bombardier.com.
All dollar values expressed during this conference call are in US dollars unless stated and otherwise.
I also wish to remind you that during the course of this conference call, we may make projections or other forward-looking statements regarding the future events or the future financial performance of Bombardier. Several assumptions were made by Bombardier during these statements and we wish to emphasize that there are risks that actual events or results may differ materially from these statements. For additional information on such assumptions, please refer to the press release issued today. I am making this cautionary statement on behalf of each speaker's remarks that they will contain forward-looking statements.
I will now turn over the discussion to Bombardier's President and Chief Executive Officer, Alain Bellemare.
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Alain Bellemare, Bombardier Inc. - President & CEO [3]
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Well, thank you, Yan. (spoken in foreign language)
(interpreted) Good morning to everyone. I'm very pleased to be here with Michael Sabia, President and CEO of the Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec to announce that the CDPQ has agreed to invest $1.5 billion in exchange for 30% stake in a new holding company that consolidates Bombardier's Transportation business segment.
The CDPQ has agreed to invest $1.5 billion in exchange for a 30% stake in a new holding company that consolidates Bombardier's Transportation business segment. This agreement is the result of a comprehensive review of strategic option and an international auction process for the private placement of a minority stake in Bombardier Transportation. After reviewing various alternatives, we came to the conclusion that this investment from CDPQ, which is one of the largest institutional fund managers in North America and one of our major investors, represents the most attractive option.
Today, we are gaining an ideal partner for this sustainable growth of our business. This transaction increases Bombardier's financial and operational flexibility, while allowing us to maintain a majority stake in Bombardier Transportation. It further solidifies our liquidity position, giving us access to total of approximately $6.5 billion in liquidity on a pro forma basis as of December 31, 2015.
This $1.5 billion investment from CDPQ is a testimonial to the gross potential of the rail market and to Bombardier Transportation's intrinsic value. This business is growing and profitable with a strong cash generation potential and no significant debt. It has a local production presence in over 20 countries and $30 billion order backlog. It also offers the broadest portfolio of products and services and the largest engineering organization in the industry.
Bombardier and CDPQ have one common objective; leveraging these assets to drive margin expansion. As I mentioned in our third quarter conference call, we have taken the right -- our liquidity position and we have now de-risked Bombardier. Our upcoming Investor Day on November 24 will be an opportunity to share additional information on our long-term strategic plan, our transformation plan and on other major initiatives that are taking place across the Company. I am now looking forward to our discussion next week in New York.
I will turn it over to Michael.
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Michael Sabia, Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec - President & CEO [4]
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(spoken in foreign language)
(interpreted) Thank you, Alain. And I know that often these calls are done in English, but I'm going to start with a few words in French first and then I'll switch back to English for the majority of my comments, but I'm going to be very comfortable answering your questions in both languages at the end of this conversation.
First, let me say that we are pleased to have made it to the end of this process and have the opportunity to invest in Bombardier Transport, end this process that began months ago. Needless to say, we've done a lot of work on Bombardier Transportation division and our conclusions are pretty straight forward. Bombardier Transport is a solid business with an impressive backlog. It's a business with real potential for the future.
What do we see in Bombardier, a company in a growing market, especially in Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Secondly, a well-positioned company widely acknowledged as the market leader and as a technological innovator with a global manufacturing footprint. And third, a resilient company, a cash flow generating business with the upside of significant growth, so exactly the kind of business that interests us most. It's very well aligned with our strategy.
Aligned with the overall investment strategy and overall orientation of our organization and that is to achieve one of our important goals, which is global diversification and we believe this transaction will help us accomplish that. So this company has, as I mentioned, a lot of very strong characteristics.
With that said, and I think Alain would be the first to say that there is room to improve execution and therefore, financial performance of the company. That itself, of course, is part of the opportunity that we see. This improvement in execution, this is precisely the kind of discipline and solid operational expertise that Alain and his new team are bringing to all levels of the business. These people are solid operators, that's what we like to invest with and that's exactly what the company needs.
As Alain has mentioned, this transaction delivers value for both of us, for both parties. So just let me touch briefly on some of the aspects of this transaction in terms of what they bring to our depositors. As a vehicle for this investment, we've designed a quite highly structured convertible preferred, a hybrid that provides our depositors with bond-like form of protection with the upside of equity.
More specifically, when we think about our returns, we think about them in three scenarios. First, in the simplest case, the instrument is structured to protect our capital and deliver a minimum return of at least 9.5% per year. In the second scenario, if Bombardier decides to buy a stake or if there's a change of control or some other kind of liquidity event, we're guaranteed a compound annual return of 15% as minimum. And finally, our preferred scenario. Bombardier Transport delivers its plan with improved execution and in this world, we believe our returns will be even more.
Now, as I said in many places over the last number of years, performance is fundamental to everything we do. So together, we built into the structure of the BT transaction we think a very useful performance incentive plan. Briefly, if BT's performance exceeds their business plan, we've agreed to decrease our ownership and our coupon in small stages down to pre-established floors, in this case 25% and 7.5% respectively. Now, you might say does that make sense for us, yes, it does make sense for us, because if BT is overperforming its plan, its fair market value will be increasing fast enough that we'll earn attractive total returns even if we have a somewhat smaller stake. Now alternatively, if BT underperforms relative to its plan, our ownership coupon will step up in stages until we reach the preset maximum over a period of five years; in this case, it's 42.5% ownership and 12% coupon. So overall, what we're trying to do with that is incentivize the company to deliver on its improvement plan and at the same time, we're building in protections for our returns.
Alain has alluded to the use of proceeds in this transaction enhancing liquidity at Bombardier Inc. Obviously, financial stability at all levels of the company is in everyone's interest. So as part of this transaction, Bombardier has committed to keeping cash reserves of $1.25 billion at all times in the sought company. Now if for some reason that threshold is not maintained, we've also agreed on a process to restore the cash reserve. A special committee of three of Bombardier's independent directors will be set up to develop with our agreement an action plan to restore those reserves and the controlling shareholder has undertaken to support that plan. Obviously in that context, the role of independent directors is obviously very important. So with that in mind, in the event that new independent directors are to be named, the Chair of Bombardier Inc. has invited us to work with him and the Board's nominating committee to identify nominees.
So in my view, today's announcement is another step in Alain's plan for taking the company forward. Obviously, there's a lot of work to do, that's no secret. My comments today talked a lot about numbers, talked about mechanics and mechanisms, but at the end and Alain alluded to this, at the end of the day this deal is really about partnership. Personally and at CDPQ, we're convinced that Bombardier Transport is a good business. Our goal in working with Alain and his team is to make this good business into a really great business.
So with that, I think we'll be happy to take whatever questions you have.
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Questions and Answers
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Operator [1]
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(Operator Instructions) (spoken in foreign language) Walter Spracklin, RBC Capital Markets.
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Walter Spracklin, RBC Capital Markets - Analyst [2]
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So I guess my first question is on the capital structure of the pro forma entity following this deal, will debt be transferred over from Bombardier Inc. into this new partnership or will it just be -- will all of the debt remain at the Holdco level?
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Alain Bellemare, Bombardier Inc. - President & CEO [3]
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The debt will stay at the Holdco level.
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Walter Spracklin, RBC Capital Markets - Analyst [4]
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Is there any view as to a capital structure target for the new partnership going forward?
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Alain Bellemare, Bombardier Inc. - President & CEO [5]
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Not at this time. No.
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Walter Spracklin, RBC Capital Markets - Analyst [6]
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Okay. Second question here, when first this was floated, the view was that this was being done to take advantage or participate in industry consolidation, you're going at different route now. Does this indicate that your likelihood of participating in consolidation is no longer likely and/or does this somewhat impede that type of consolidation, especially in November you do have some minimum earn outs here embedded within the agreement?
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Alain Bellemare, Bombardier Inc. - President & CEO [7]
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No, Walter. [Answer to it is] like we have maintained a flexibility to continue looking at potential strategic options and we understand that there is conservation in the rail industry and the way that we've designed the structure with Michael and the team has basically preserve the ability for us to do what is right in term of industry consolidation moving forward.
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Michael Sabia, Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec - President & CEO [8]
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Let me just add from our point of view, if Alain had an interest in it and an interesting transaction came along, I think we would regard that as actually a value creating opportunity. And we would be, in general and strategically, we would be frankly quite support of Bombardier going in that direction, if they saw a transaction that they like and if they wanted to move in that direction.
So, clearly from our end, we would not see our presence in the company as being an impediment at all.
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Walter Spracklin, RBC Capital Markets - Analyst [9]
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I noticed that you also have a term that after five years, you can kind of force a sale or IPO if you wanted to. Is that indicating that, that would be your preferred option, Michael?
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Michael Sabia, Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec - President & CEO [10]
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Honestly, no. When you do these deals, as you know, we're making a substantial investment in a non-public vehicle that is a subsidiary. And therefore, it's just good business practice for us to focus on and ensure that we have (technical difficulty) we're very satisfied with the liquidity we have in this transaction, particularly given that that liquidity comes in conjunction with certain guaranteed minimum. So that's just the way you do a deal, because the future is unpredictable and it makes sense to make sure that you have those out.
That being said, when I use the word partner, I actually mean it, it's the most overused word in business today, along with team, but it's a heavily overused word, but I actually mean it. Now Alain has the right to buy us out at the end of three years, again as guaranteed, returns a minimum of 15%. I'm actually hoping he doesn't do that, notwithstanding that the 15% on an annual compound basis is a pretty attractive number for people who are in our business. But I'm actually hoping he doesn't do it. He has the right to do it, but I'm hoping he doesn't do it, because as I said, we think this business, the transportation business has a lot of interesting potential, and there's a lot of things that can be done here to -- I mean anything, I think Bombardier Transportation is already a global champion. I think it can be an even bigger and stronger one and that's one of the reasons why we're investing in the company, we just like it as a company.
So, if that opportunity presents itself, we're going to be happy to do it.
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Walter Spracklin, RBC Capital Markets - Analyst [11]
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Certainly. And the minimum payout, is that conveyed in ownership or is there any cash component to those annual minimums?
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Michael Sabia, Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec - President & CEO [12]
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Well, if I were to express them in terms of liquidity opportunities and so if we are taking out, for instance, if Alain decides he wants to go solo on this, then he has the right to call us out in that event that would be a cash payment to in that case equal to the $1.5 billion, 15% compounded annual return over the three-year or four-year, whenever he exercises that right. But again, notwithstanding how much money that is, I still like to stay as partner.
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Walter Spracklin, RBC Capital Markets - Analyst [13]
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Got it. And last question here --
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Alain Bellemare, Bombardier Inc. - President & CEO [14]
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Walter, we'll leave space for other people.
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Operator [15]
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Cameron Doerksen, National Bank Financial.
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Cameron Doerksen, National Bank Financial - Analyst [16]
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I guess I just wanted to just a couple of clarifications on the structure of the deal and some of the wording. You sort of described this as a convertible preferred share and 9.5% coupon is something you referred to it. Does that mean that there is 9.5% cash coupon going to the case each year, is that how I should interpret that and I guess the second thing is there are several references in the press release to quote-unquote fair market value. Is there any way you can sort of define that for us?
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Michael Sabia, Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec - President & CEO [17]
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Sure. Look, on the 9.5% coupon, there is flexibility around that, but it's structured as a pick so it's not necessarily in year a cash pay, so some of it can be -- I mean there is flexibility here, some of it Bombardier can choose to pay, some of it -- or Bombardier Transport can choose to pay. Some of it in cash up there to the holding company, some of it to us. But by and large, because it's a fixed structure, we've done it this way in order for the pick to not necessarily have to be cash pick, so that's that one.
On the fair market value, I'm not quite sure how to answer your question and the fair market value is what it is. At the time, we would look at a variety of options and test what the fair market value was and then the way the liquidity mechanisms work because we have certain guarantees, we would compare the available fair market value to those guarantees and pick whichever is highest.
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Cameron Doerksen, National Bank Financial - Analyst [18]
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Okay. And just also briefly, what's the timing on the deal closing?
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Alain Bellemare, Bombardier Inc. - President & CEO [19]
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I think it's in the first quarter of next year.
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Operator [20]
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Doug Carson, Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
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Doug Carson, Bank of America Merrill Lynch - Analyst [21]
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I guess one of the kind of concerns that bondholders have had is liquidity at Bombardier and the large cash burn that was used to create the C Series. So my first question on this deal, it looks like there is approval rights for dividends and in the event that Bombardier Transportation was to generate a significant amount of cash, how open would CDPQ be to dividend-ing that cash to Bombardier?
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Michael Sabia, Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec - President & CEO [22]
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Look that question is so open-ended and hypothetical that it's almost impossible for me to answer that. It depends on circumstances, so I don't think I can be a lot more specific than that other than to say, when you make an investment as we are in transportation company and again, come back to word I used, you always want to act as a good partner. So we'll discuss these things and try to get to mutually workable solution. But it's very difficult to answer your question in principle, because it's not -- it's pretty acontextual.
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Alain Bellemare, Bombardier Inc. - President & CEO [23]
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Let me get John Di Bert here also give us view on this.
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John Di Bert, Bombardier Inc. - CFO & SVP [24]
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So, Doug, thanks for the question. I think as you said, there are approval rights for the dividend and dividend policy and I would just add that as we built the business plan and as we established the basis for the investments with the CDPQ, we've also in there had a projection of cash flows and fund and so forth.
So all I would say is that there has been modeling of what would be appropriate dividend out of the business from this operating cash flow, which we believe will be positive and obviously strong. And I think from Michael's point, those will be elements that will be executed at the Board, but we certainly believe that the business itself will be able to sustain an appropriate and healthy dividend that would not materially change anything related we've had to-date.
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Michael Sabia, Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec - President & CEO [25]
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Can I just go back, I just want to clarify something, because in my answer to the previous question, the pick is a non-cash item and what I said was I was running together dividends and pick, so let me just clarify. The pick is non-cash. On the payment of dividend, there is flexibility around that in what form they take, but the pick is a completely non-cash item.
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Doug Carson, Bank of America Merrill Lynch - Analyst [26]
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[Nine of ten], I guess the reason why we have investors who will be focused [on is, 30% business] controlling 100% of dividend. That said, that's kind of where the question comes from, if I'm thinking about it right?
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Alain Bellemare, Bombardier Inc. - President & CEO [27]
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Yes. And like I said, I think --
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Doug Carson, Bank of America Merrill Lynch - Analyst [28]
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And this is for the transaction and I think the market certainly is positive on this liquidity, I think it was a very important part of it. And that's my only question, so I appreciate you taking my call.
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John Di Bert, Bombardier Inc. - CFO & SVP [29]
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Yes. And Doug, I just wanted -- like I said, when we modeled and when we worked with the CDPQ inherently, there is a modeling of at least EUR200 million dividend that is modeled in there. Now it's not to say that there is a predetermined dividend policy, but certainly that is within the concept of the basis of the investments. And that would mirror our past behaviors and as I said before, we believe and as Michael was underlying that and Alain has also underlined, we are here to drive better performance from the business. And as a result, we believe that there should be fairly strong common interest in continue to grow the cash flow and as a result producing a higher dividend than our historical rate and I think that will be in the best interest of all the shareholders frankly. But like Michael said, those would be conversations will have with the data as it develops (technical difficulty) but we have common [interest for both shareholders].
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Operator [30]
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Benoit Poirier, Desjardins Capital Markets.
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Benoit Poirier, Desjardins Capital Markets - Analyst [31]
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Just to comeback on the liquidity front, Alain you mentioned previously that you needed $2 billion to bring the C Series to free cash flow positive. So, now that you've secured $2.5 billion from CDPQ and the Quebec government, could you mention what is the amount that you need to complete the Global 7000 and 8000 and how do you see the liquidity as in current situation?
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Alain Bellemare, Bombardier Inc. - President & CEO [32]
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As I said during the third quarter earnings release, we at that time announced that we had a total liquidity position of $5 billion, which was sufficient to complete all of our new programs including the C Series 100, 300 and the Global 7000 and 8000. So today, this addition of $1.5 billion is further strengthening our liquidity position and de-risking all our cash position moving forward and putting us in a position where we have the cash needed to complete all of our programs and have a nice safety net in order should there be economic conditions that put pressure on some parts of our business.
So we feel very good about where we are landing right now from an equity standpoint. I think that we've been working at it for a few months that was a big milestone for us to achieve and today with Michael support investment into the rail business, I'm pleased to say that we have de-risked our liquidity position.
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Operator [33]
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[Alma Habibi], JP Morgan.
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Alma Habibi, JP Morgan - Analyst [34]
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You referenced several times that this investment has bond-like protections. Can you elaborate on that, what does that mean?
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Michael Sabia, Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec - President & CEO [35]
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Sure. The instrument is designed to give us the capital protection and coupon that has bond-like characteristics in that. The 9.5% coupon is analogous to the yield of the interest rate or coupon that one would earn on a bond and that serves as providing our depositors with both the protection of their capital and also in our view, in this market in particular, a quite attractive coupon that can be earned on a year-over-year basis. Because of its convertible nature, it also provides us access to the improvement in the value of the company that we think is achievable here given its market positioning, given the growth, particularly that exists in emerging markets and importantly, given the execution improvement opportunities that exist in the business. If you put those three things together, we do see meaningful equity-like upside.
So this instrument provides, in our minds, a floor return equal to that coupon and the upside potential that equity brings with it and you can see that reflected in the liquidity provisions that are there and the 15% returns that are there, which are generally in the postal code of the kinds of equity returns that we would expect from this. If the performance of the company is as we hope it will be and that we're confident it will be under Alain's leadership, then in fact, we're comfortable that we have access to even more interesting returns than that.
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John Di Bert, Bombardier Inc. - CFO & SVP [36]
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Alma, if I could also do jump in for quite a second here, this is John speaking. Just to clarify, there is no put option if I can say it that way, whereby by Bombardier would be obligated to make a payment to distinguish or redeem the shares in dollars. So I guess that's the only distinction that I want to make to add here is that the Bombardier would have the right to redeem the shares at its discretion for the minimum return that Mike has identified, 15% compounded. In the instance where there is a liquidity preference that's exercised by the Caisse de depot, in that circumstance, they would receive the proceeds up to the minimum return of 9.5% from the actual transaction that occurs thereafter, which is either an IPO or still in hold or in part of that business.
So it's the only distinction I want to make just to be refer about the liability nature of it. There would be no requirements for Bombardier to pay in cash dividends.
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Alma Habibi, JP Morgan - Analyst [37]
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Just one clarification, it looks like this convertible shares are senior to BT Holdco common shares. How should I interpret that as it relates to Bombardier Inc. complications from a structure perspective? Would this $1.5 billion be structurally senior to Bombardier Inc. obligations?
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John Di Bert, Bombardier Inc. - CFO & SVP [38]
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I guess, what I would say there is that simply that is an equity investment, right. So they've preference to common shares, but ultimately they're an equity investment and will be recorded as such.
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Alain Bellemare, Bombardier Inc. - President & CEO [39]
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Moda, we have time for one more question from investors and financial analysts.
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Operator [40]
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Chris Murray, AltaCorp Capital.
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Chris Murray, AltaCorp Capital - Analyst [41]
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Can you give us some more explanation around the financial stability requirement at the core business. And when we think about -- we've talked about a minimum of $2 billion to kind of run the company, where does the $1.25 billion threshold come in. And can you just maybe explain a little bit more about how the governance mechanisms are going to work moving forward?
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Alain Bellemare, Bombardier Inc. - President & CEO [42]
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So, maybe I'll start quickly with, Chris, I'll start with the minimum liquidity commentary. So, as we run the business and we've had comments or conversations in the past with the analysts and the investment community with regard to our need for extreme amounts of liquidity at the start of the year, that is I still think in the range of what is appropriate. Obviously, that will change over the next several years as we start to exit some of major investment programs.
With respect to the $1.25 billion and where that fits, to be clear, right, we will run the business as we are running the business today, which is I'm sure that we have the right stability and operational capability. The $1.25 billion and Mike made comments on how they [perceived it but part of their concern] establishes a standard by which we would also know that action was acquired as a management in controlling -- or at the management team as well as our own Board.
So it's not meant to be kind of the new kind of comfort level, it's simply meant to say that at that level or below, we would recognize the needs and take some strategic actions to improve liquidity and it provides, I believe I don't want to speak for Mike on the case it provides them some comfort as to say when and if that product -- that level is the same they would like to have some participation in how we go forward.
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Michael Sabia, Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec - President & CEO [43]
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The way we think about this is, I'll now come back to a comment I made earlier we're investing in a subsidiary of the business, the rail division that as I've already said that we very much like. That being said, because -- and again, it's just prudent on our part because we're investing in a subsidiary, we have an indirect interest in ensuring that there is a workable level of sustained liquidity at the top company. So there is no particular magic in the $1.25 billion number that's really the result of a process of conversation between us and Bombardier. We're comfortable that at $1.25 billion as the cash reserves on hand at the top company that that provides us with an additional layer of protection for our investments in the subsidiary.
Now, as you said, as John mentioned to the extent that something happens and things happen, we hope they don't, but if something were to happen, then there is a process that's in place to restore it and that process relying on independent directors, our involvement -- declaration on the part of the controlling shareholder to support the result of that process with our agreement, those are important features we believe in this overall transaction in which we regard as a significant steps forward.
(multiple speakers)
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Alain Bellemare, Bombardier Inc. - President & CEO [44]
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To make clear, you talked about $2 billion to $3 billion of cash on hand and that's the number we've been using for quite a while. And we were like honestly focusing more towards the higher upper end of this given the number of large aerospace development programs. Now, as these are coming down, the level of cash needed to run the business will also be coming down, because really we are de-risking the programs as well.
So we, in talking with Michael and the team, we felt that the $1.25 billion threshold was a good minimum floor that we could always maintain at any one point in time to properly manage the business for long-term success. So that's the number and as Michael said, there is no magic to this, we just look at cash flow projection, we look at our models and we converge on a number that makes sense for all of us.
Your question about governance, there is going to be a Board of Director at the Bombardier Transportation level. There will be seven members on it, there will be members from Bombardier and there will be three members from La Caisse and this is going to be Chaired by me, Alain and there will be no change to the leadership team at BT. It will continue to be led by Lutz Bertling and current leadership team that is in place. So there is no change at that level.
In working with Michael and our Chairman and our Board of Directors, we've also invited La Caisse to be part of the selection process of new independent Board members. So we will work in cooperation with La Caisse to identify a potential candidate and seek to obtain an agreement in making the recommendation of final candidates to our Board of Directors where the final decision will remain. So in the end, our Corporate Governance, Nominating Committee and our Board of Directors will make the final decision, but we welcome La Caisse's involvement in this process to help identify the best possible candidate for our Board of Directors moving forward.
So that's kind of the governance changes or modification that we've done on this deal.
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Alain Bellemare, Bombardier Inc. - President & CEO [45]
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Operator, we'll now begin the question period for the media representatives.
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Editor, [46]
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This concludes the analyst portion of this call.
Portions of this transcript that are marked (interpreted) were spoken by an interpreter present on the live call. The interpreter was provided by the Company sponsoring this Event.
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