Boeing Seeks to Line Up Billions in Financing as Strike Goes On

The aerospace giant said it could raise as much as $25 billion in debt or equity over the next three years, including a $10 billion line of credit.

Boeing on Tuesday announced steps to improve its financial position as costs mounted and a strike by its largest union entered its second month.

In two regulatory filings, the company said that it could raise as much as $25 billion by selling debt or stock over the next three years and that it had entered into a $10 billion credit agreement with a group of banks, which it has not yet drawn on.

“These are two prudent steps to support the company’s access to liquidity,” Boeing said in a statement. The banks are BofA Securities, Citibank, Goldman Sachs Lending Partners and JPMorgan Chase.

The moves come days after the company revealed about $5 billion in new costs and announced a restructuring that included plans to cut 17,000 jobs, or 10 percent of its work force.

The strike, which began a month ago, is costing Boeing tens of millions of dollars a day, according to various estimates. Most of the workers who walked out are involved in production of commercial airplanes, bringing much of that work to a virtual halt, though one major airplane, the 787 Dreamliner, is manufactured at a nonunion factory in South Carolina.

Talks between the company and the union representing 33,000 striking employees, the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, broke down last week, with Boeing retracting its latest contract offer and each side blaming the other for intransigence.

Julie Su, the acting labor secretary, visited Seattle on Monday to meet with Boeing and the union, the union said in a statement.

The strike is very likely costing Boeing about $1.3 billion in capital a month, according to calculations by Sheila Kahyaoglu, an analyst at Jefferies, the investment bank. Given those costs and its need for more debt, raising $10 billion by selling new shares would provide the company “considerable flexibility,” Ms. Kahyaoglu said in a research note.

Last week, S&P Global Ratings said it was considering lowering Boeing’s credit rating, depending on how long the strike lasts, to junk status, a downgrade that would raise Boeing’s borrowing costs. The company’s debt totals nearly $58 billion, up from about $9 billion a decade ago.

Boeing hasn’t reported an annual profit since 2018 and has been struggling since two fatal crashes of the 737 Max, the company’s most popular plane, in 2018 and 2019. Those accidents cost the company billions of dollars and severely damaged its reputation. In January this year, a door panel on a 737 Max 9 jet blew open during an Alaska Airlines flight, renewing concerns about the company’s planes. The Federal Aviation Administration has limited Boeing’s production of Max jets until it improves production quality.

The chief executive of one of the world’s largest airlines, Tim Clark of Emirates, said recently that Boeing could be forced to seek bankruptcy protection if it was not able to issue more shares to improve its financial position.

“Unless the company is able to raise funds through a rights issue, I see an imminent investment downgrade with Chapter 11 looming on the horizon,” Mr. Clark told The Air Current, an aerospace news publication.

Boeing’s share price was up about 1 percent on Tuesday morning.