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The CEO of the beleaguered fuselage supplier Spirit AeroSystems, who successfully engineered the plan for Boeing to buy the company 20 years after selling it, could soon be Boeing’s top boss.
Spirit CEO Patrick Shanahan brokered the deal announced Monday for Boeing to acquire Spirit for $8.3 billion, or $37.25 per share, including Spirit’s net debt. The talks began after a Boeing 737 Max 9 plane had a fuselage panel built by Spirit blown out of the plane in January.
All the while, Boeing has been searching for a new CEO after its current head David Calhoun announced in March he would step down at the end of the year.
In an interview with The Seattle Times about the deal Monday, Shanahan dodged questions about becoming the next CEO of Boeing but didn’t outright deny interest.
“It’s not my place to comment on what Boeing might or might not do,” Shanahan said. “I’ll be keeping my eye on getting this deal done at Spirit.”
Shanahan, a former acting Defense Secretary under the Trump administration who also once worked as a top Boeing executive, has only been CEO of Spirit since last fall. He was brought on after the company fired its then-CEO Tom Gentile.
Before pulling off the deal with Boeing to buy Spirit, Shanahan’s name had already been floating around as one of the next people to lead the company.
Aviation analyst Adam Pilarski told The Seattle Times that Shanahan would be “an inspired choice.”
During the three decades he worked at Boeing, Shanahan helped course-correct the stalled production of the 787 Dreamliner, according to the Financial Times.
The deal is expected to close in 2025. The Wichita-based Spirit was spun off from Boeing in 2005. Airbus, Boeing’s chief rival, is also purchasing part of Spirit in the deal.