MONTREAL — Shareholders of CAE Inc. have approved the transfer of CAE’s head office to Montreal from Toronto.
“We have brought CAE back to its birthplace,” said Robert E. Brown, CAE’s president and Chief Executive Officer, at the company’s annual and special meeting of shareholders. “Montreal is the centre of Canada’s aerospace industry, and it was here that CAE was founded in 1947. It is appropriate that the company headquarters be located here.”
Brown noted that CAE directly employs more than 2,800 people in the Montreal area and also generates significant economic spin-offs, injecting $70 million a year into the economies of Montreal and Quebec through a network of some 450 suppliers and subcontractors. “As well as being a prominent player in the region’s dynamic aerospace industry,” Brown said, “we are a major contributor to the Quebec economy.”
Claude Béchard, Quebec’s Minister of Economic Development, Innovation and Export Trade, welcomed CAE’s decision. “CAE, a world leader in its field, has chosen Quebec. By recognizing our highly-skilled labour force and our international leadership, CAE has underscored the position of Montreal and Quebec as a centre of excellence at the very forefront of the global aerospace industry.”
Brown said there are clear indications that recent initiatives designed to enhance the company’s competitiveness and to strengthen the balance sheet have “started to gain traction.” He added that CAE has “made some tough decisions and undertaken some difficult tasks” over the past year to address new market realities — most notably the lingering uncertainty hanging over the airline industry.
