New Boeing CEO 'saying the right things' to investors after weak Q3
Boeing (BA) has posted its third quarter earnings, posting a $6.17 billion loss — its biggest quarterly loss since 2020. The company's new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, stated that it needs to focus on changing the culture at Boeing and stabilizing its execution strategy. This comes as its striking workers begin voting on a new contract which could end the weeks-long strike. George Ferguson, Bloomberg Intelligence senior aerospace defense and airlines industry analyst, joins Morning Brief to dig into the latest earnings report and discuss how Ortberg can spearhead Boeing's turnaround. "The cash flow burn was a bit better than some had feared in the marketplace... They need about $10 billion to run the company. They told us they have $10.5 billion on the balance sheet. So they have right around the right amount of money to run it. We're watching that shelf registration for additional stock issuance, that can be pretty dilutive. So I think if they don't get the strike cleared up tonight, I think you'll see them go into the marketplace and maybe take down a bigger portion of that equity," Ferguson tells Yahoo Finance. He believes that CEO Kelly Ortberg is "saying the right things" to investors, especially when it comes to changing the culture at Boeing: "The challenge here, of course, always is where the sort of the rubber meets the road. He's got to strike a deal with the union... You can't drag them back to the factory. They've got to be happy with the pay rates they get here, the 401(k) program they get. And you got to bring them back to the floor, energize them so you can build good airplanes. That's a huge challenge." He believes that the 35% pay raise in the tentative agreement is in line with agreements achieved by other machinists, and calls it a "pretty good deal." Once the machinists get back to work, he adds that Boeing's leadership needs to show them that "they're super important to the business" and should listen to them in order to "build a great product." To watch more expert insights and analysis on the latest market action, check out more Morning Brief here. This post was written by Melanie Riehl
