'Major announcements' to accompany Bombardier earnings report Thursday minister

UDPATE:Bombardier has reported a $1.6 billion US loss for 2019. It isleaving thethe commercial aviation business and has sold off it's remaining stake in the A220 program formerly known as the C Series.

Read the latest developmentshere.

Amid suggestions that Quebec aerospace giant Bombardier may be poised to announce the sale of its rail division, Quebec Economy Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon was tight-lipped Wednesday about what's in store.

"I know everything that's going to happen, but I'm not at ease to talk about it," Fitzgibbon told reporters. Bombardier's board ismeeting today, and the minister said hecan'treveal anything ahead of Thursday's announcement. The company will release its financial results for 2019 after 6 a.m. ET Thursday and hold a conference call at 8 a.m. ET.

He would not address media reports from Reuters and BFM, a television station in France, that rail company Alstomis preparing an offer to buy Bombardier's rail division. The Caisse de dpt et placement, Quebec's pension fund manager, which owns 30 per centof the rail division, would be paid in Alstom shares, according to those reports.

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That latest news follows months of reports that Bombardier has beenin talks with various buyers to sell the division, which has been plagued bydelays and problems with orders, in an effort to free up cash to slash its massive $9-billion US debt.

Bombardier employs about 400 workersmaking trains at itsfactory in La Pocatire, in the Lower Saint Lawrence region northeast of Quebec City. Another13,000 people work on Bombardier's various aerospace projects in the Montreal area, according to the CSN and AIMTA unions.

When asked if jobs would be maintained in Quebec, Fitzgibbon said he was "confident that Quebecers will be happy tomorrow morning."

Business jet division

The rail division is not the only part of Bombardier's shrinking empirereported to be up for grabs.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the Americancompany Textron is interested in buying Bombardier's business jet division, makers of the Global and Challenger lines.

As well, Bombardier said in January that it was "reassessing its ongoing participation" in its partnership with Airbus to manufacture the A220, formerly known as the C Series.

Despite the Quebec government's $1.3 billion investment inthe C Series in 2016, sales of the planes were initially slow, leading Bombardier to sell a controlling stake of the C Series program to Airbus in 2018for $1.

While A220 orders have since started rollingin, Bombardier would need to inject more money into the program to ramp up production.

Premier Franois Legault has ruled out investing more government money inthe A220 program, but Fitzgibbonsaidthat he wants to protect Quebec's investment in the plane.