BUSINESS BRIEF

Cessna’s parent to buy Beechcraft for $1.4B

12/28/2013

WICHITA, Kan. — Cessna Aircraft parent firm Textron Inc. said late Thursday it will buy Beechcraft Corp. for roughly $1.4 billion, a deal that would combine two mainstays of Wichita’s general aviation industry.

The announcement by Rhode Island-based Textron caps a year that saw Beechcraft emerge from bankruptcy largely freed from debt and its unprofitable Hawker business jet operations, which it stopped making to focus on turboprop and piston aircraft as well as trainers and light attack planes for the military.

Textron said it expects to complete the acquisition next year. It said it was not known whether job cuts would occur.