Foley Assembling Cirrus Counter-offer

Aviation consultant Brian Foley is organizing a counter-offer in a bid to trump a Chinese company's plan to buy Cirrus Industries from Arcapita, the worldwide investment firm that owns 58 percent of the light-aircraft manufacturer, and several hundred individual shareholders. The goal: to keep the Duluth, Minn.-based Cirrus on American soil. That company's president and CEO, Brent Wouters, announced on February 28 that China Aviation Industry General Aircraft (CAIGA) had signed an agreement to purchase all of Cirrus. Though details of the pending sale to the Chinese firm were not made public, Foley expects the price to be in the $200 million-plus range. At press time, Cirrus founder and ex-chairman Alan Klapmeier had just returned from an overseas trip and had yet to be briefed by Foley on this counter-offer.