....this time it's good news. Daher Socata (TBM) is the proud new owner. Looks like a defensive move ahead of Denali to me. The French company will also have a broader aviation reach and expertise internationally than Setouchi Holdings and Mitsui did. Good news for Quest I think.

I think that's great news. The French just purchased a luxury catamaran catamaran outta bankruptcy.

I'm curious as to this as usually the French business side has many governmental beaurocracy issues.

Interestingly Daher remains a private, family owned business. Albeit with very close relations with the French government. Even more strangely Dassault is still largely private too with the Dassault family still involved. That may or may not have changed so anybody feel free to correct. The only worry I see for the Sandpoint employees is Daher has a large investment in Mexico making composite structures where they may be tempted to further integrate Quest activities but that's just a guess. It'll be interesting how to watch how quickly their big inventory overhang gets reduced. Might be time to go shopping......

It's always fun to speculate but going back to the earlier thread on Quest transaction prices (which got exactly zero response. LOL) you could see where perhaps Denali final pricing might be targeted right in between the
PC-12 and TBM - $5M vs. $4M yields $4.5 Denali target? The hope would be that you would have a better chance of capturing sales from both, price competition with the 12 and some size step-up customers from the TBM market. That's what I was guessing about earlier with the Quest purchase being something of a defensive move by Daher to put a dent in Caravan sales to possibly reduce revenue loss in the U.S. (but especially overseas) if the Denali is successful at stealing some sales. Like I said, pure speculation but it'll be fun to watch.

Given Daher does more than just aircraft sales hard to say. No breakdown of revenue by area.

Last week they bought an aircraft composites company. https://www.compositesworld.com/news/daher-acquires-kve-composites-group

They're an impressive company and have continued adding capabilities to the TBM over the years that pushes other airframers to advance as well. Too bad it's so dang expensive in these later model years. Not that it isn't worth it, I think it is. I was very fortunate to have had an early version for awhile but the King Air is still the Rolls Royce to the TBM's Bentley.

Kind of wonder if the TBM run is over. A lot of used airframes out there competing with new sales, and they are pretty much a 1 trick pony. Maybe the Kodiak keeps them afloat. Sold only 1 930/940 Q1??

1st quarter can be sluggish for any OEM

I think there is a lot of TBM 940 inventory in Tarbes waiting for delivery for the FAA certification....




Kind of wonder if the TBM run is over. A lot of used airframes out there competing with new sales, and they are pretty much a 1 trick pony. Maybe the Kodiak keeps them afloat. Sold only 1 930/940 Q1??

1st quarter can be sluggish for any OEM

If TBM makes a PC12 knock-off that does 320knts and lands like a Kodiak, I'm in for a brand new one!!!

Here's where I see a possible problem:

Quest makes a bunch of "Gen 1" Kodiak just before announcing the improved "Series II" model... many of these remain unsold.

Now with Daher purchasing Quest, i wonder if potential buyers will take a step back to see if Daher has plans to make more improvements.

I wonder how many of the improvements of the Series II can be retrofitted to those unsold Gen 1 units, and how much of a discount will be needed to get them sold. Things like the single point refueling won't happen, but maybe the NXI can be done less painfully.

According to a Quest video I saw on YouTube some time back many of the Gen 2 *improvements* were incorporated as running changes during Gen 1. So Gen 2 was more a marketing event than a one time wholesale block change so to speak. That single point refueling option, and I believe it is still an option, would be a godsend on any Caravan or Kodiak. Someone mentioned that the single point option caused a reduction in the gross amount of fuel the Kodiak can take but I don't know the accuracy of that, rumors about airplanes are more numerous than ones about the lady in the neighborhood who wears too much makeup! I hope, for others sake and not for me unfortunately, that there will be something of a fire sale on *Gen 1* on-the-ground inventory to clear the decks.

FWIW,

Single point fueling is available to install from Wipaire.

https://www.wipaire.com/aircraft_page/quest-kodiak/

I find its a better solution than factory as the fuelling port is lower on the side of the plane vs under the wing on the factory option.
Im sure Daher willl offer the NXi conversion for the Kodiak same as they did on the TBM.