Hawker Beechcraft, the business jet maker, said on Thursday that takeover talks with the Superior Aviation Beijing Company had collapsed and that it would instead seek to emerge from bankruptcy as a stand-alone company.
Superior Aviation, led by the industrialist Shenzong Cheng, who is known as the “Helicopter King of China,†according to The Associated Press, had reached an agreement in July to acquire Hawker for $1.79 billion.
In a statement on Thursday, Robert S. Miller, the chief executive of Hawker, said: “We made the decision to proceed with the stand-alone plan of reorganization after determining that, despite our best efforts, the proposed transaction with Superior could not be completed on terms acceptable to the company. We are disappointed that the transaction did not come to fruition, but we protected ourselves by obtaining a $50 million deposit from Superior that is now fully nonrefundable and property of the company.â€
Hawker said t he company that emerges from bankruptcy would focus on its most profitable products - turboprop, piston, special mission and trainer/attack aircraft - as well as on its high-margin parts, maintenance, repairs and refurbishment businesses. The company will be renamed the Beechcraft Corporation.
Hawker Beechcraft was formed in 2007 when Goldman Sachs and the Canadian private equity firm Onex bought Raytheon's private jet unit for $3.3 billion. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May.
