CV wrote:

James Robinson wrote:

Cub Driver wrote:

ThomasH wrote:

It almost sounds as if you would be believing that Airbus is
French.

It is, for all practical purposes. There would be no Airbus without
France; it's located in Toulouse; and France is the largest
stakeholder.

Not true. The Toulouse plant may be where final assembly is done,
and where the operating headquarters of Airbus is located, but there
are a number of other manufacturing plants, and France is not the
largest stakeholder. The company is 20% owned by British Aerospace,
with the remaining 80% owned by EADS.

According to the following site, the ownership or EADS is:

http://www.reports.eads.net/2004/ar_...c_b3_3_3_0.php

- 30.2% Daimler Chrysler
- 15.1% Government of France
- 15.1% Lagardère (A French corporation)
- 5.5% Government of Spain
- 33.2% Publicly held shares

Therefore, the French government only owns about 12% of airbus, and
is not the largest shareholder.

Why should that interest anyone?

Someone made an incorrect statement, I was simply correcting it.

What those figures do show is that French ownership is in the range
24.16 to 50.72%, depending on what portion of the "Publicly held
shares" are in French hands.

Even at the minimum limit of 24%, French participation is
still bigger than that of any other country, as far as one
can tell from those numbers.

So which country has a larger stake than France according to you ?

No country, but there are larger stakeholders. The poster had suggested
that France, as in the country, was the largest stakeholder (he didn't
say "the French" or "French shareholders") Daimler Chrysler is the
largest stakeholder, and British Aerospace is also larger than the
French Government.