Boeing stock tumbles after it seeks $60B government bailout

By Julie Johnsson and Alan Levin / Bloomberg News

Boeing’s Wall Street rout deepened as investors reacted with alarm to news that the planemaker is seeking at least $60 billion in U.S. government aid for itself and suppliers in a race to shore up cash to weather the coronavirus pandemic.

The federal support would encompass “public and private liquidity, including loan guarantees,” Boeing said Tuesday. While the proposal’s details are still being fine-tuned, the bulk of the funding would flow through Boeing to its network of partsmakers, said a person familiar with the matter. Other companies could separately use the guarantees to line up their own financing.

The bailout push won an enthusiastic endorsement earlier from President Donald Trump, who told reporters that “we have to protect Boeing, we have to help Boeing.” His administration is discussing a broad-based stimulus package of as much as $1.2 trillion to blunt the economic impact of the widening crisis, and airlines and hotels are also rushing to line up government financing with the U.S. travel industry besieged.

Boeing’s plea for help underscored the strain on an aviation industry grappling with its deepest crisis in decades. With the pandemic’s duration still unknown, talk is shifting to dire questions such as whether Boeing — until recently a prodigious cash generator and the country’s most valuable industrial company — is too big to fail.

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