One of the industry news items today was the announcement that China’s AVIC (Aviation Industry of China) is in talks to buy a small US airplane market.
This is interesting on many levels and truly shows how the world is changing — lest anyone thought we are really not that global.
AVIC is state owned and manufactures aircraft including fighter jets and helicopters. And being state owned has lots of money. It had revenue last year of approximate $25 billion and is ranked #353 on the Global 5000 list.
The Aerospace & Defense sector of the Global 5000 has 42 companies with firms like Boeing, EADS, Lockheed Martin & United Technologies as the largest. It is huge. These 42 companies represent approximately $567 billion of revenue and employ over 2 million people.
Cirrus is small by comparison — under $500 million and not on the Global 5000 list. One interesting aspect of this Minnesota based firm is that it is 55% owned by Bahrain investment interests.
So, we have a small “American” business in the middle of the country. Owned primarily by Middle East investments being acquired by an entity of the Chinese government that mainly serves the military.
Makes the global financial inter-weaving look almost tame.