On 28-Sep-05 15:50, James Robinson wrote:
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.

This was my point... Airbus is an international undertaking,
put together from several companies on an initiative of
governments. The largest stake was held for a very long time
by the British Aerospace, followed by the German MBB, which
became later a part of Daimler-Benz (Dornier was also a part
of the conglomerate for a while.)

And since Daimler-Benz and Chrysler became one, they are now
the largest shareholder. And so Airbus is also... American
if you would apply this logic. I wonder what share of
British Aerospace is owned by the British government?

Last but not least: Government, or the ruling family of
Kuwait was the largest shareholder of Daimler-Benz!

Anyway, for historic reasons none of the European countries
was able to compete against US manufacturers on their own.
And so France, England and Germany put their efforts
together to create the Airbus company.

Thus, Airbus is not to be simply called "French" :-)

Thomas