Posted on 06/16/2006 1:40:20 AM PDT by lowbuck
Noël Forgeard, long-time "Monsieur Airbus" and now co-chief of Europe's aerospace giant EADS, told French radio this morning he had no intention of resigning despite growing pressure over mounting troubles in the A380 super-jumbo programme.
The leadership crisis came as it emerged that Mr Forgeard and three other top EADS executives had cashed in shares worth millions of euros in March, just weeks before the discovery of grave defects in the A380 wiring system.
Mr Forgeard admitted in this morning's interview on the Europe 1 radio station that problems with the A380 first surfaced in April but that they initially seemed manageable. The timing of the stock options being exercised was an unfortunate coincidence, Mr Forgeared said, and he did not know about the A380 problems at the time.
EADS stunned the markets this week with an admission that the $300m (£160m) double-decker A380 was far behind schedule, entailing at least €2bn ($1.4bn) in penalty clauses and extra costs.
The stock lost a quarter of its value on Wednesday, though it rebounded 6pc yesterday to €20.
Mr Forgeard said this morning that no orders have been cancelled and that around 400 planes will be delivered in 2007. He added that he is ready to go back to the ground at Airbus to fix the problems.
Arnaud Lagardère, the French co-president of the board, warned yesterday of a "major crisis" at the world's top producer of passenger aircraft, announcing a probe to learn how the company had been allowed to go so far off the rails.
"It's not just the delay that investors are punishing, it's their lack of confidence in Airbus's ability to properly manage very complex projects," he told Le Monde newspaper.
"Before punishing whoever it may be, we're going to dig deep into the group to find out where the production problems are coming from. We will act on both the industrial and human level," he said.
He plans to "discuss" Mr Forgeard's future with the board, but said there was no search for a scapegoat.
Mr Forgeard, a close confidante of French president Jacques Chirac, was the chief executive of Airbus until last year.
He moved up to become co-chair of EADS, the twin-headed, Franco-German mother company, which has an 80pc stake in Airbus.
Until recently basking in Airbus's success, he cannot now deflect criticism for errors that track directly to his tenure. It was he who bet the group's future on the prestige plan for the biggest ever passenger jet.
Events are now showing that Airbus may have bitten off more than it can chew with the A380, while leaving the goal wide open for Boeing to score with its super-light, carbon composite 787 Dreamliner.
Mr Forgeard wildly misjudged the threat posed by the Dreamliner, which is now harvesting a bumper crop of orders due to a quantum leap in fuel efficiency - all the rage with oil around $70 a barrel.
His many foes are sure to pounce on the revelation yesterday that he sold €2.5m-worth of EADS stock options on March 15 at a price of €32.01. Two days later he disposed of a second block on behalf of his three children for €1.4m, according to documents submitted to French regulators.
An EADS spokesman said Mr Forgeard and three other executives did not learn about the A380 wiring troubles until April, weeks later. "They had no specific information," he said. Mr Lagardere said the four executives would have to "answer" for the timing of their stock sales. There is no suggestion that any laws were broken.
Mr Lagardere himself halved his 15pc stake in EADS last month but insists he had been given no inkling of trouble at a board meeting in May. "If we had been dishonest, we would have sold all our stock. I have the choice of appearing dishonest or incompetent, a man unaware of what is happening in his own factories. I plead the latter," he said.
Seems Noel's roll of the dice is coming up "craps".
What is this guy smoking?
The engineering details are not even worked out and this guy is talking about building more than one jumbo jet per day NEXT YEAR?
This guy hass been the "Darling Boy" of the Aviation and MRO magazines for the last 3 years. I must have seen 20 or 30 'interviews' of him. All saying the same thing.
Glad to see him being exposed for the POS that he is.
What is this guy smoking?
The engineering details are not even worked out and this guy is talking about building more than one jumbo jet per day NEXT YEAR?
He appears to be incompetent in producing airplanes, but also incompetent in his dishonesty.
This guy sounds like the Carly Fiorina of the aerospace industry. All hat, no cattle.
It's a French thing, given the relationship of the press and government officials, or in this case, a friend of a
government official.
And about 393 of them, +/-, will be something other than the A380.
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