Rail companies Bombardier and Siemens plan merger
By
Gustav Kemper
25 April 2017
Since the beginning of 2017, the two companies Bombardier and Siemens have been engaged in secret merger negotiations behind the backs of their employees. According to reports by the financial news agency Bloomberg, the two firms want to merge their train-building and signal technology operations into a joint venture to compete with Asia, above all China, in the important export markets. The consolidated corporation could achieve estimated annual revenues of €13 billion.
Thousands of jobs would hang in the balance if there were a merger, since the range of products manufactured by the two corporations overlap in many areas. Bombardier produces various regional and high speed train models in its plants in Görlitz, Bautzen and Henningsdorf, and Siemens Mobility produces similar models in the plants in Krefeld and Munich.
Bombardier is already engaged in negotiations with IG Metal and the works councils to cut 2,500 jobs at its German plants. The largest layoffs would take place at the Görlitz and Henningsdorf locations.
In Austria as well, where Bombardier employs 550 workers in Vienna in competence centres for trams, many jobs are in danger. Siemens also runs a plant in the same city, which produces trams and subway cars with a workforce of 1,200. If the Vienna plants were merged, an unknown number of the jobs at Bombardier and Siemens would be endangered.
While thousands of jobs at both corporations as well as supply industries are in danger, shareholders of both companies are rejoicing over the prospects if the merger succeeds. The Wirtschaftswoche quoted analysts of the French financial service provider Kepler Cheuvreux, according to which “Siemens shareholders alone could…