Airbus cancelled negotiations with MT Aerospace / OHB over the sale of Airbus’ German factories.

Airbus said that OHA was not “economically andindustrially sound”. Indeed, OHB, which lacks real expertise in aerostructures, seemed tohave been chosen by default by EADS, assumes Les Echos, which also reveals thatinvestment fund Cerberus accelerated the end of talks when it retired from the sale process.But Airbus also blamed the weakness of the dollar. Talks started when the dollar was worth€1.35. Last Thursday, the US currency traded above 1.75 to the euro. OHB TechnologyChief Executive agreed that currencies had been an issue, and predicted that Airbus may notsell its sites at all. Yet, negotiations with Latecoere and GKN are still going on, confirmedspokesman Rainer Ohler. For Les Echos, the difficult restructuring process of Airbus hasentered a new phase of turbulence. Although Airbus underlined that this incident would notchallenge the rest of the sale process, it clouds the feasibility of the Zephyr plan andincreases risks on the A350 programme, states the paper. To proceed with the sale, ThomasEnders, Airbus CEO, is considering forming an aircraft production company, with the help ofinvestors, and which the plane maker would hold a majority stake. “There is no turning back”in outsourcing, he underlined. Whatever, Airbus will not wait for the end of the sale processto make the required investments in the A350 programme. “We are making the necessaryinvestments to make sure that the entry into service isn’t affected”, confirmed an Airbusspokesman. In addition, costs saving measures resulting from this aborted sale attemptmight be necessary. Airbus CEO Thomas Enders wrote in a letter to his employees thatadditional efforts would have to be made, “efforts that even go beyond our current Power8objectives”. According to rumors, US firm Spirit may be back in the race. It was ThomasEnders’ initial choice until he agreed to talks with OHB to comply with government wishes tokeep the plants in German hands. The US would probably back a talks revival, in the light ofEADS just having been given a large contract with the US government.
Bloomberg, Dowjone
Newswire, AFX, AFP (27/03) Les Echos, La Tribune, Le Figaro, Libération, L’Agefi, Financial Times, The
Wall Street journal, Herald Tribune, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Handelsblatt, Süddeutsche Zeitung