EADS Has A Good 2008

(MoneyWatch)  The Los Angeles Times reports that EADS had a profit of almost $2 billion for the last year. In the last quarter the company made over $600 million. This is a swing of over $2.6 billion from 2007 when the company was recovering from the A380 delays. The company is not that positive about the upcoming year due to the downturn in the world's economy and the struggles it faces with the A400M military transport program. Sales of civil aircraft the bulk of the company's work will probably be down as the people continue to fly less. EADS does have the chance of rewinning the KC-X contract once that competition is restarted. If it had been able to keep that program revenues in 2008 would have been substantially higher. EADS does have almost $11 billion in cash reserves and had reportedly canceled an acquisition in order to save this money for the future. The money would also be available to pay any of the customers canceling their A400M orders if that occurs. EADS has restructured and positioned itself for the next few years but it is hard to see it continuing these types of earnings as long as the global economy is struggling.