Diamond Aircraft is now 100% owned by a Chinese company

I assumed that Diamond Austria owned Diamond Canada. No? Where is Diamond Austria in this?
 
Rory said:
I assumed that Diamond Austria owned Diamond Canada. No? Where is Diamond Austria in this?
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Wanfeng bought 60% of Diamond Canada a year ago. The linked article in the OP is a year old. That deal excluded the Austrian Diamond companies that own the DA-62 and the Austro Diesel engines (there is a confusing typo in the linked 2016 Flying article - it says DA-62 when it should have said DA-42).

Wanfeng appears to have closed a deal in this past week to buy 100% of these Diamond Austria interests.
 
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GRG55 said:
Wanfeng bought 60% of Diamond Canada a year ago. The linked article in the OP is a year old. That deal excluded the Austrian Diamond companies that own the DA-62 and the Austro Diesel engines (there is a confusing typo in the linked Flying article - it says DA-62 when it should have said DA-42).

Wanfeng appears to have closed a deal in this past week to buy 100% of these Diamond Austria interests.
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Well that’s helpful. So the issue is whether Chinese investors have purchased the entire company and, if so, who they are and what their intentions are.

Thanks
 
olasek said:
Aren't Cirrus and Mooney also owned by Chinese?
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Yes. Cirrus is owned by a US subsidiary of a Chinese State owned company, CAIGA (China Aviation Industry General Aircraft), which also owns Continental Motors. Mooney is owned by private Chinese interests.
 
Rory said:
Well that’s helpful. So the issue is whether Chinese investors have purchased the entire company and, if so, who they are and what their intentions are.

Thanks
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Yes, they own 100% of the Diamond Austrian interests.

It's not clear if in the same transaction it also bought the rest of Diamond Canada; that may be the case.

General Aviation manufacturing is a tough business. It takes investors with extremely low cost capital, and low expectations of ROCE, at least in the first decade or two, to want to be in it.

Used to be the Japanese that fit that profile. Now it's Chinese capital.
 
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I am purely speculating, but the Chinese have been desperate to expand general aviation in China. The expertise to build aircraft and to pilot them is lacking in that country. I suspect that many of the purchases made are directly or indirectly funded by the Chinese government to buy the assets needed to bolster general aviation in China.
 
The chinese can't even make boxers or socks that hold up, and I'm going to trust them with my wing spars

tenor.gif
 
GRG55 said:
General Aviation manufacturing is a tough business. It takes investors with extremely low cost capital, and low expectations of ROCE, at least in the first decade or two, to want to be in it.
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I think that that describes an awful lot of investors in the west post 2008.

Interesting that Diamond has been purchased by Chinese rather than Canadian, American or European investors, and not before the economic rebound.
 
James331 said:
The chinese can't even make boxers or socks that hold up, and I'm going to trust them with my wing spars

tenor.gif
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I wouldn’t worry about this unless production is transferred from Canada to China.

And even then, I find it amusing that Japan was regarded not so long ago, as a manufacturing nation, as China is today, and that your smartphone was probably made in China.
 
James331 said:
The chinese can't even make boxers or socks that hold up, and I'm going to trust them with my wing spars
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Your engine parts come courtesy of the Chinese govt now. ;) :D
 
James331 said:
The chinese can't even make boxers or socks that hold up, and I'm going to trust them with my wing spars
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Drive over a bridge recently? Good odds its steel came from China.
 
Cirrus has been owned by the Chinese government for a bit now, so are several other GA companies. Nothing new.
 
Rory said:
I wouldn’t worry about this unless production is transferred from Canada to China.

And even then, I find it amusing that Japan was regarded not so long ago, as a manufacturing nation, as China is today, and that your smartphone was probably made in China.
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James331 said:
The chinese can't even make boxers or socks that hold up, and I'm going to trust them with my wing spars
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China has been building parts on aircraft for many years now delivering parts for Boeing and even assembling full A320s for Airbus. If I remember correctly Cessna was building the Skycatcher there.

Further, they recently certified the indigenously designed and produced ARJ21 and C919. The C919 is designed to compete with smaller airliners like the 737 MAX and A320neo. The ARJ21 is a regional jet.

While China does have some factories that produce cheap things and kockoffs, they also have some manufacturing centers that are very advanced.
 
China is following the same development pattern as Japan and South Korea. As internal labor becomes more expensive, and the manufacture of low value goods migrates elsewhere (such as Vietnam), the economy has to shift to higher value goods.

The South Koreans accomplished it faster than Japan, China will accomplish it even faster than South Korea. In large part because it is working in an almost zero cost of capital world.

The problem is the institutionalized corruption. The attitude that it's okay to produce off specification product, or even complete knock-offs, to make more money, as long as you don't get caught. That's how you end up with melamine in baby formula and lead in the paint on children's toys. Nobody cares if they produce a knock-off Breitling or Gucci handbag and sell it for $10 to tourists in Hong Kong. It's a different matter when it comes to the parts that go into an A-320 or similar.

I'm quite certain it's going to happen, it's just a matter of time. And it will be Airbus' or Boeing's problem when it does.
 
My guess is it is entirely appropriate for these aviation companies to be purchased by the Chinese. I suspect at the end of the day the color of the ink they will see is red.
 
skier said:
China has been building parts on aircraft for many years now delivering parts for Boeing and even assembling full A320s for Airbus. If I remember correctly Cessna was building the Skycatcher there.

Further, they recently certified the indigenously designed and produced ARJ21 and C919. The C919 is designed to compete with smaller airliners like the 737 MAX and A320neo. The ARJ21 is a regional jet.

While China does have some factories that produce cheap things and kockoffs, they also have some manufacturing centers that are very advanced.
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Yeah, airplanes that Textron proceeded to destroy rather than deal with the liability of. If you think that decision and the fact it was their all Chinese produced airplane are mere coincidences, I have Chinese manufactured toddler toys for your kids to play with and put in their mouth. As @GRG55 already alluded to, that millienia old culture is so dynastic and corrupt to the core it is wholly incompatible with the value of human life in the pursuit of technological progress. I for one don't approach their economic rise at our economic decline so nonchalantly, just because they happen to bankroll our moribund piston market's flagship plastic darling. Bankrolling that has nothing to do with our market btw, but yet another attempt at expanding their tech base on the cheap for themsleves. The relationship between their economy and the affluence of our domestic masters may be symbiotic, but they sure aren't friends of ours down here in w2 'murica.
 
rtk11 said:
but the Chinese have been desperate to expand general aviation in China.
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Desperate? And it takes 3 days for the Chinese air traffic system to find a spot for your Cessna if you want to do some cross country flight ... I don’t think they are desperate enough.




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Regardless, the fewer Chinese or commie parts in my plane the better
 
James331 said:
The chinese can't even make boxers or socks that hold up, and I'm going to trust them with my wing spars

tenor.gif
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Rather have Goldman Sachs own then like the did Beechcraft/hawker? Hawker is now a orphan.
 
Paulie said:
Rather have Goldman Sachs own then like the did Beechcraft/hawker? Hawker is now a orphan.
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Hawker didn't become an "orphan" (technically, it's not an orphan-it's just not being produced) until Textron bought it.
 
MauleSkinner said:
Hawker didn't become an "orphan" (technically, it's not an orphan-it's just not being produced) until Textron bought it.
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I saw the entire Little Rock operation shut down by Goldman. People with decades on the job suddenly unemployed.
 
Paulie said:
I saw the entire Little Rock operation shut down by Goldman. People with decades on the job suddenly unemployed.
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100% agreed. That doesn't in any way prove Chinese benevolence. Which is my only point on this thread.
 
Paulie said:
I saw the entire Little Rock operation shut down by Goldman. People with decades on the job suddenly unemployed.
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Unemployed people doesn't constitute an orphaned line. By that logic, Boeings are orphaned because they shut down their Wichita operation.
 
Also China buys into companies and land as future investments for control. As told by a professor of mine, China looks decades down the road while the West looks at most a few years. It's the reason why they're building ghost cities in Africa, slowly buying up US land and companies, building Caribbean infrastructure and agricultural operations.

The resort next door to my parents place in St. Maarten has been scoped out by the Chinese for a super lux 20 story resort. For their "generosity" of Chinese investment they also offered to build tunnels under the mountains for all the main roads. The local government told the Chinese to go F themselves. The local islands are getting worried about the Chinese.

The end goal is to own and control 100% of everything. Now will they is a very great unknown.
 
Well here’s my take as a guy who likes their planes and has chosen to train on a DA 20.

The high point of this story is when the Canadian Government, when Mr. Dries threatened to close down his factory in London, Ontario in about 2011 unless Canada “lent” him many millions of dollars, told him to get stuffed.

The remaining question is how much he managed to soak the Austrian Government for.

If Chinese investors want to own Diamond, and European, Canadian and American investors don’t, and Dubai investors don’t (also part of the post 2008 story), who cares.

P.S. For all Dries’s threats to the Canadian Government, demanding taxpayer money, Diamond continues to run its North American production from its factory in London.
 
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Rory said:
Well here’s my take as a guy who likes their planes and has chosen to train on a DA 20.

The high point of this story is when the Canadian Government, when Mr. Dries threatened to close down his factory in London, Ontario in about 2011 unless Canada “lent” him many millions of dollars, told him to get stuffed.

The remaining question is how much he managed to soak the Austrian Government for.

If Chinese investors want to own Diamond, and European, Canadian and American investors don’t, and Dubai investors don’t (also part of the post 2008 story), who cares.

P.S. For all Dries’s threats to the Canadian Government, demanding taxpayer money, Diamond is still making planes in London.
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Apparently the wrong Province and the wrong aerospace company name... ;)
 
GRG55 said:
Apparently the wrong Province and the wrong aerospace company name... ;)
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For those who don’t know, CRG55 is talking about a Canadian company called Bombardier.

Bombardier started as the inventor of the snowmobile, also known as the Ski-Do, that my parents used as kids. We can agree to disagree about this, but my view is that the public investment in this Ski-Do company has worked out fairly well.

And it was Canadian taxpayer money being invested in a Canadian company rather than an Austrian company run by a guy threatening to close down a factory unless he was lent (in fact, given) many millions of dollars.

I wonder how many people reading this even know that Bombardier started out as a tiny company that made snowmobiles, or that it now makes quite a bit more than airplanes :)
 
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