Boeing has agreed to buy Spirit Aerosystems as part of its plan to boost safety.

New York
CNN
—

Boeing has agreed to buy Spirit Aerosystems, one of its key suppliers and manufacturing partners, as part of its plan to repair the aircraft manufacturer’s badly damaged safety reputation.

the full stock deal Boeing announced Monday that it would buy its stock for $4.7 billion, or $37.25 per share, after months of discussions between Boeing and the company it spun off in 2005. Boeing announced in March its intention to buy Spirit.Saying that the reunification of the two companies will enhance safety.

The total value of the deal is approximately $8.3 billion, including Spirit’s reported net debt.

“We believe this transaction is in the best interests of the aviation public, our airline customers, Spirit and Boeing employees, our shareholders and the nation more broadly,” Dave Calhoun, Boeing’s president and CEO, said in a statement.

Spirit AeroSystems manufactures key parts for several Boeing models, including the fuselage of the 737 Max. The parts are then shipped to Boeing factories for assembly. The company also makes parts for Boeing’s rival Airbus, although Boeing is Spirit’s largest customer.

The Boeing acquisition would mean the breakup of Spirit. The European planemaker will buy the supplier’s “key activities” related to Airbus for $1, Airbus said in a statement on Monday.

Airbus said in its statement that these activities include the production of A350 fuselage sections in Kinston, North Carolina and St. Nazaire, France, and A220 wings and middle fuselage in Belfast, United Kingdom. statement. It will receive $559 million from Spirit in compensation.

Spirit has had its own series of quality control problems in recent years, and Boeing has agreed to pay the company more money to try to improve Spirit’s quality and reliability issues, which have hurt Boeing’s production and reputation.

Sprit got involved in January Door seal burst An Alaska Airlines 737 Max crashed shortly after takeoff, leaving a large hole in the side of the plane.

Boeing said last week that two different groups of employees were assigned to do work on the door plug, a part used in place of an emergency exit door. The first group of employees removed the door plug to address issues with bolts manufactured by Spirit AeroSystems. But Boeing employees Documents not created Which suggests that they removed the door stopper, along with the four screws needed to hold it in place, in order to do this job. So the second group of employees replaced it, not realizing that the screws were missing.

Several whistleblowers have come forward since that incident, including some employees and contractors at Spirit. Last week, for example, Whistleblowers A Spirit Aerosystems contractor said he told the company that there are large gaps in a key part of the 787 Dreamliner that pose a “catastrophic” risk to passengers.

Spirit has been involved in other safety problems for Boeing. In 2023, it used a “non-standard manufacturing process” when joining parts of 737 MAX fuselages, prompting Boeing to halt deliveries of the planes. Earlier this year, a Spirit employee informed Boeing that two holes may not have been drilled according to Boeing’s requirements, which required Boeing to rework about 50 yet-to-be-delivered aircraft.

The US Department of Justice is approaching agreement With Boeing, that would include corporate probation and a fine in exchange for pleading guilty to criminal charges, according to lawyers representing the families of victims of the two 737 MAX crashes, who strongly criticized the offer as a “friendly deal.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Chris Isidore, Diksha Madhok and Olesya Dmitrakova contributed to this report.