French company plans to employ 100 in Quebec
Latécoère works with Bombardier; Wants to establish long-term presence
French aerospace firm Latécoère Group said Thursday it intends to have a permanent Quebec staff of 100 engineers within five years, building on its 40-engineer temporary workforce currently working on Bombardier Inc.'s CSeries.
François Bertrand, president of the Toulousebased firm that posted 464.4 million euros ($644 million) in revenues last year, told assembled delegates at the annual meeting of the Association québécoise de l'aérospatiale (AQA) that the new Canadian subsidiary's purpose is to take advantage of a wider range of aerospace programs in Canada in "the aeronautics, space, defence and transportation sectors."
"This new Canadian operation puts us in an excellent position for future development in North America," Bertrand said in a statement.
Latécoère is a specialist in aerostructures, wiring systems and engineering and services. It's working with Bombardier on aerostructures for the CSeries.
Jacques Saada, president of the AQA, said in an interview that "it's crucial for us for companies to establish a long-term presence here."
"That's excellent news that adds a lot of value to our supply chain here. And it was great that it was announced at our annual assembly, where our members could all learn about it."
The AQA has 238 members, small-and medium-sized aviation suppliers who employ about 11,000 people in Quebec.
Founded in 1917, Latécoère is an illustrious firm in aviation. Antoine de Saint Exupéry immortalized in several novels the perilous mail-delivery exploits of pilots - including himself - for Latécoère, which built flying boats and was later known as Aéropostale.
The Latécoère expansion will be carried out through its LATecis foreign subsidiary and received "strategic support from Montréal International to set up in the region," but Bertrand did not specify the value of that support.
Montréal International president Jacques St-Laurent said in a statement that his organization's "mandate includes attracting foreign investment (to) greater Montréal (and) assisted the company at every key project step."
Hervé Schembri, president of LATecis, said that "we have set some very ambitious development objectives for North American markets, which offer attractive growth opportunities for all our areas of expertise."
"We foresee exciting nearterm opportunities for two of our main services; engineering design for large-scale aeronautics companies and supply of turnkey systems such as assembly line tools and test benches for the industry,"
The Canadian unit will be headed by Éric Giguère, a graduate of École Polytechnique de Montréal who also received a certificate from Harvard Business School.
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