EADS is not preparing a counter-bid for US defence electronics group DRS Technologies

A spokesman for EADS said yesterday that the group is not preparing a counter-bid for US defence electronics group DRS Technologies, thus denying an earlier report by Le Figaro that the company could lodge a bid. He added that no executive committee was taking place yesterday, for that matter. In a comment piece, Dow Jones Newswires says it will not be easy anyway for EADS to elbow Finmeccanica out of the race for DRS. For a start, investors may strongly react at the likely price EADS would have to propose as the Italian group is already offering € 3.4Bn ($ 5.2Bn). And politics might be a counter-argument against EADS too. After the company beat Boeing in the US Air Force competition, many lawmakers bear a grudge at EADS. Furthermore, an acquisition of DRS may pose tricky integration issues at a time when EADS’s management still has trouble getting Airbus back on track after cost overruns and delays with its new programmes. For its part, Finmeccanica does not exclude the scenario of a rival counter-bidding for DRS. CEO Pier Francesco Guarguaglini told Italian daily La Repubblica yesterday that such a move could be undertaken by “either an American company or a European one”. Reuters (19/05), AFX (19/05), Dow Jones Newswires (19/05), Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Suddeutsche Zeitung, Financial Times Deutschland, Negocio