Aerospace |
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It's not just the U.S-based companies that are talking consolidation.
Last Wednesday, John Weston, the managing director of British Aerospace, told a French parliamentary commission that he sees
a need to combine BAe, Germany's Daimler-Aerospace and Aerospatiale-Dassault.
These companies would, according to Weston, be the "strict minimum"
in creating a European company. Others from Italy, Spain and Sweden would
follow as partners later. And this regrouping of companies, in light of
US's recent powerful proposals, is urgent in Weston's eyes. Among other
things, it's long overdue. Europe has been slow in adapting and to Weston,
it's time to play catch up. One obstacle Weston did mention was French state's
100 percent stake in Aerospatiale and 50 percent stake in Dassault Aviation. He thinks it would be hard to have BAe's management ask their shareholders to exchange the control of 100 percent of their company against a mere fraction of a European company which the state has a major stake in. He envisions a company where the partners have a stake and could transfer assets at a later time. Although he spoke of this during a closed meeting, Weston claimed he has no plans to leave the Airbus consortium. Weston reportedly said that the status of Aerospatiale as a state-owned company was not an obstacle to Airbus' transformation, but it could be the first obstacle in the next stage of a block merger of the parent groups -- which would only happen if all companies were private. In addition to Weston, Manfred Bischoff, chairman of Daimler Aerospace (DASA), was also heard by the commission last Tuesday. Bischoff sees a need to transform these joint ventures into one single European company. He reiterated the words single company, reports claim, as a way of getting ahead of competition in the US. |
