Allison Bankruptcy?

Thanks for your help on this; I contacted the RR Heritage Trust in Indianapolis and am waiting for an answer or clarification. I had tried some contacts at RR in France, where I’m based, as well as various aerospace journalist friends, but without a definite answer (although nobody could remember any reference to a Chap 11).

At the time of the RR takeover, it seems they created a special independent unit to handle all secret US military work, which is how they got around that requirement.

Don

Can you clarify your statement?:confused: As I understand it, Rolls Royce (Allison Division) are doing work for the US government and the owners of the company, RR, don’t know what their employees are doing or aren’t allowed to use the knowledge that they are producing.:confused:

All US military programs are on a “need to know” basis. If Rolls Royce management does not have a “need to know” what its Allision Division is doing, then it can not be told.

The kind of things they would “need to know” are the budget for the program and the number of people working on the program. But they do not “need to know” about the nature of the program.

The US Government is using Allison for ‘super-secret’, fully funded, programmes from which its new owners will be excluded access. This work is only 3% of Allisons business.Ray

Can you clarify your statement?:confused: As I understand it, Rolls Royce (Allison Division) are doing work for the US government and the owners of the company, RR, don’t know what their employees are doing or aren’t allowed to use the knowledge that they are producing.:confused:

Is this the end of the inquiry?

Have spent many hours on the ‘Flight’ archive site tryng to solve the question of Cht.11 protection for Allison before sale to RollsRoyce was finalised in March 1995, that long ago! RollsRoyce said that Allison improved its financial performance in 1994 from heavy losses to announce a $6 million pre-tax profit on sales of $632 million. So no bankruptcy protection was needed! The US Government is using Allison for ‘super-secret’, fully funded, programmes from which its new owners will be excluded access. This work is only 3% of Allisons business.
Ray

Don’t make him work too hard, here is the address with an e-mail link!:D

http://www.rolls-royce.com/history/heritage/offices/indy.jsp

A google for Rolls Royce Heritage Trust might help.

Best wishes
Steve P

What’s RRHT?

I’ve called a number of people, including ex-Allison in Indiana (now RR North America or Corp. or something like that), but the PR person said she only arrived with RR and didn’t know any of the earlier history. Didn’t want to pass me anybody else for some reason either…

I’m in France and tried a few RR contacts here as well, but nobody was sure – or wanted to go on record!

Thanks for your help,
Don

Have you tried RRHT? They have an Allison branch.

Roger Smith.

Yes, thanks, I did more or less know that; what I was wondering is if during the 18 months or so that it was an independent company if it ran into a Chapter 11 or anything similar?

From what I’ve been able to find out, seems it was losing money in its last years with GM (although they didn’t break out results) but was still a fairly sound concern as you say, with lots of US government contracts. That’s why I was kind of surprised to see the reference to a bankruptcy…

Don

GM unloaded it into a (Venture Capital-aided) MBO (Management Buy Out), who sold as a going concern to RR.