BAE to Sell Airbus Stake to EADS to Focus on Defense

April 7 (Bloomberg) -- BAE Systems Plc, Europe's largest defense contractor, plans to sell its 20 percent stake in Airbus SAS to European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co., ending a 37-year partnership in the world's biggest maker of commercial aircraft.

Negotiations with EADS, which owns 80 percent of Airbus, are at an ``early stage,'' London-based BAE said in a Regulatory News Service statement. The 20 percent holding is valued at 3.5 billion euros ($4.3 billion) in EADS's books, EADS said March 8.

BAE is selling its last commercial-aerospace holdings after a record year of plane orders for Airbus and chief competitor Boeing Co. BAE Chief Executive Officer Mike Turner is building up the defense division, which provides artillery, missile launchers and Bradley Fighting Vehicles to the Pentagon and is the U.S.'s seventh-largest military supplier.

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http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000006&sid=ai1HRMnhKjvQ&refer=home

"In my time I came to learn that the Chairman of British Aerospace appeared to have the key to the garden door to Number 10. Certainly I never once knew Number 10 to come up with any decision that would be incommoding to British Aerospace".
- Robin Cook, former Foreign Secretary from "Point of Departure"


Corporate Profile from Corporate Watch UK (up to 2002)
http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=182

On the Al-Yamamah deals
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=9008
http://www.caat.org.uk/publications/countries/saudi-arabia.php

Arms firm's £60m slush fund
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1208898,00.html

Revealed: BAE's secret £1m to Pinochet
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foi/story/0,,1570339,00.html

John Pilger on the UK arms trade
http://pilger.carlton.com/print/106565

(& a plug for a downloadable recent British TV documentary "After Schools Arms Club" where high-school children exploit loopholes and become arms dealers and brokers:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=200882&mesg_id=200882 )