Dubai Aerospace Enterprise: A primer

01 August 2007

Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE), the organisation that has bid to buy Auckland International Airport is a new, untested company from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), but it has loads of cash and global ambitions. Its chairman is Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, part of the billionaire Maktoum family that rules the emirate of Dubai, a fast rising global services centre for its oil-rich neighbouring emirates like Abu Dhabi.

This multinational aerospace manufacturing and services corporation is partly owned by the Dubai government and seeks to become a major player in the international aerospace industry. Its focus is on aircraft spare parts manufacturers, aircraft leasing and maintenance, airport management and an aerospace university.

Apart from the Dubai government, DAE's shareholders include the Dubai Airport Free Zone Authority, Dubai International Capital and the Dubai International Financial Centre.

Formed in February 2006, DAE is headed by Bob Johnson, former chairman and chief executive of Honeywell Aerospace, who took over last August. It was Johnson who personally negotiated the deal with Auckland Internation Airport Ltd (AIAL).

DAE may be just 15 months old, but it is already so global in its outlook that it could turn its gaze to Auckland Airport, at the other end of the world.

Johnson said in Auckland that the business regards the city's airport as part of its plans to build an airport portfolio for the next 100 years.