Bombardier shed snowmobiles for jetliners, trains. Now, it’s giving up both

Bombardier Inc. tried to take on much bigger players in the global market for trains and commercial jetliners. Having shed both those businesses in as many weeks, it now plans to pare the debt that forced those retreats, and navigate a much smaller industry: business jets.

The Canadian company said earlier this week it would sell its train business—a maker of high speed trains and New York City subway cars—to French giant Alstom SA, netting as much as $4.5 billion. It has promised to deploy that cash to significantly reduce $9.3 billion in long-term debt, much of which was borrowed to finance an ill-fated effort to break into the commercial plane market. It separately agreed to sell its remaining stake in that business last week to Airbus SE.