By Helen Massy-Beresford

Dubai Aerospace Enterprise (DAE) is emerging as a likely candidate to buy or partner with one of Airbus' manufacturing sites as the manufacturer pushes forward with its Power8 restructuring plan.

The Middle East's newly formed aerospace company declines to comment specifically on whether it is interested in Airbus sites, but says: "Our growth strategy includes organic growth and growth through partnerships and potential acquisitions.

"As such, we are routinely and actively surveying the marketplace for opportunities."

And the company admits that "at any given time, we are engaged in various stages of discussion with other companies about opportunities to work and grow together."

Russia undoubtedly wants in, but as in other threads, its whether the corrupt Eurocrats let them in.

As we've seen already, EADS is foolish to keep them at arms length, yet embrace the nation that infringes on every known copyright on the planet and hands them an operational A32X line

The Times
May 18, 2007

GKN in talks to land Airbus site at Filton
David Robertson, Business Correspondent

Airbus is closing in on a deal to secure 6,000 jobs at its Filton factory near Bristol as two bidders for the site emerge.

GKN and Spirit Aerosystems are understood to be in advanced talks with Airbus about taking over the wing- component facility.

Filton, which was the home of Concorde, has been identified by Airbus as one of three locations in Europe that could be outsourced to a third-party supplier.

Final negotiations with GKN and Spirit on the structure of the sale are expected to begin in mid-June.

Finmeccanica, the Italian owner of AgustaWestland, the helicopter manufacturer, is believed to have dropped out of the bidding.

Airbus announced this year that it plans to save ¤200 billion, and its management is attempting to streamline operations.

The 55,000-strong workforce will be cut by 3,700 jobs in Germany, 3,200 in France, 1,600 in Britain, 400 in Spain and by 1,100 at the headquarters in Toulouse.

Three factories will be sold or closed and another three, including Filton, are to be outsourced.

Airbus is hoping to reduce the amount of work it does in-house to cut costs. The company gets only a quarter of its components from third parties, compared with 80 per cent for its competitor Boeing.

Thousands of Airbus workers have taken industrial action during the past two months to protest against the restructuring plans, called Power 8.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the new president of France, will meet Airbus union leaders today to discuss the company’s restructuring proposals.

British unions hope that the plans for Filton could turn into an opportunity for the Bristol facility. They point to the success of one of the potential buyers, Spirit Aerosystems. The company, based in Wichita, Kansas, was spun out of Boeing in 2003 and is now regarded by analysts as the world’s leading manufacturer of aircraft parts.

Spirit makes the front fuselage and cockpit sections of Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner, and is also gaining orders from other companies. Last week it won a $150 million order from Sikorsky, the helicopter group, to build fuselage sections.

Spirit is also understood to be talking to Airbus in Toulouse about taking a role in the European manufacturer’s next aircraft, the $12 billion A350XWB.

GKN, the British industrial company and former owner of Westland helicopters, is the world’s largest supplier of carbon-fibre aircraft parts and is involved in the manufacture of fighter jets such as the F18 and F35. GKN is also supplying parts for the Boeing 787 and is working with Airbus on the A380 superjumbo project.

The negotiations between Airbus and its potential Filton partners are thought to be focusing on guaranteeing work for the A350.

A spokesman for Airbus said: “Since Power 8 was announced in February we have been in dialogue with a number of parties regarding Filton, but beyond that we cannot comment.”

Neither GKN nor Spirit was immediately available to comment on the deal.

Thu Jun 7, 4:50 AM ET

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - U.S. aircraft fuselage maker Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc. (NYSE:SPR - news) is eyeing plants that European planemaker Airbus is selling as part of a restructuring aimed at lowering costs, a German paper said.

Spirit has expressed interest in four of the six plants for which Airbus is seeking buyers or partners, the Financial Times Deutschland reported on Thursday, citing Airbus sources.

"This is just speculation. There is no comment that we can make on this," said an Airbus spokeswoman.

The paper said Airbus, owned by European aerospace and defense company EADS (EAD.PA), would not confirm the interest from Spirit.

Spirit, which is a former unit of Airbus rival Boeing (NYSE:BA - news) which makes commercial jet fuselages and wing parts, is partly owned by Canadian buyout firm Onex Corp. (Toronto:OCX.TO - news).

10-June-2007 13:49:23

FRANKFURT (Thomson Financial) - EADS Airbus chief executive Loius Gallois reiterated in an interview with the Hamburger Abendblatt newspaper the company wants to announce a decision on the sale of some of its production sites by the end of next month.

"We want to complete the selection of candidates in July and sign general sale agreements," Gallois told the newspaper in an interview that appeared in yesterday's edition.

He said there were possible buyers for each plant, but did not name any.

Airbus Uses Merrill Lynch to Advise on Plant Sale Valuations
By Andrea Rothman

June 10 (Bloomberg) -- Airbus SAS, seeking to sell or find partners for six factories in Europe, has engaged Merrill Lynch & Co. to advise it on valuation of those sites in the U.K., France and Germany.

``We are working with Merrill Lynch for valuation of the sites,'' Barbara Kracht, a spokeswoman for Toulouse, France-based Airbus, said in a telephone interview today. Kracht said Airbus has been working with Merrill Lynch for several months. The U.K.'s Sunday Express newspaper reported the news earlier today.

Airbus, struggling to end a financial crisis sparked by delays in the A380 superjumbo jet is reorganizing its approach to planebuilding, seeking to become more of an ``integrator'' of parts built by companies outside Airbus itself.

In February, it unveiled a plan to sell three plants and to find partners for another three so it can get outside partners to help shoulder the costs of future aircraft development programs. Airbus has said the A350, its answer to Boeing Co.'s 787, will require 11.8 billion euros ($15 billion) for development and capital costs.

Airbus Chief Executive Louis Gallois has said a goal of the reorganization plan, known as Power8, is for suppliers to do about 50 percent of the work on Airbus's planes compared with 25 percent now.

Airbus is seeking investment partners for its plants in Filton in the U.K., Meaulte in northern France and Nordenham in Germany. Airbus is also looking to sell outright three plants, including Laupheim and Varel in Germany and St. Nazaire-Ville in France.

GKN ready for fight over Filton and other Airbus plants

· British firm is frontrunner to invest in Bristol factory
· Paris show should reveal EADS in better shape

David Gow in Brussels

Monday June 11, 2007
The Guardian


Airbus will launch formal negotiations with GKN this week over the British engineering group taking an equity stake in the European plane-maker's factory at Filton, near Bristol, and two of its French plants.

GKN is understood to be a frontrunner to invest in Filton, which makes composite wing components and employs 6,500 people. The UK group, which claims to be the world's leading independent supplier of composite aerostructures, faces tough competition from the US company Spirit while the Netherlands' Stork and Sweden's Saab, part-owned by BAE Systems, and others have also expressed interest.

Airbus poised to sell Filton and French sites

By Russell Hotten at the Paris Air Show
Last Updated: 1:25am BST 20/06/2007


Airbus is within a few weeks of selling or finding investment partners for three European factories, including its Filton site, near Bristol, which employs 6,000 people manufacturing wing components.

The company's chief executive, Louis Gallois, said at the Paris Air Show yesterday that he was finalising negotiations to auction the facilities under a plan to save more than £1.3bn for the loss-making plane maker.

It is understood that the UK's GKN and America's Spirit Aerospace are front-runners to take on Filton, either buying it outright or investing in the facility as a joint venture partner. Airbus wants to follow Boeing's successful model and out-source more functions.

The Filton factory would continue to supply Airbus with composite components. GKN, which already works closely with Airbus, is also understood to be interested in the two French factories that Airbus is selling.

There were reports yesterday that China's state-owned aerospace company, China Aviation Industry Corporation, wants to buy some Airbus sites. However, Tom Enders, joint chief executive of EADS, the Franco-German company that owns Airbus, said at the air show that he knew of no bid from China.

GKN, Spirit lead race to invest in Airbus UK plant

Wed Jun 20, 2007 3:18PM BST

LE BOURGET, France, June 20 (Reuters) - Britain's GKN Aerospace (GKN.L: Quote, Profile, Research) and U.S. aircraft fuselage maker Spirit AeroSystems (SPR.N: Quote, Profile, Research) have emerged as front-runners to invest in Airbus wings production at Filton in western England, industry officials at the Paris air show said on Wednesday.

They are among four companies described as well-positioned to pick up stakes in the first three European factories being fully or partially sold as part of the company's restructuring.

Others include France's Latecoere (LAEP.PA: Quote, Profile, Research), which is bidding to buy the nose and cockpit sub-assembly factory in Meaulte, France, and OHB (OHBG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) unit MT Aerospace, formerly known as MAN Technologie, which wants to invest in Nordenham, a German factory responsible for fuselage shells.

"There are at least two credible bidders for Filton," a source familiar with the sale process said. Two sources said GKN and Spirit were leading the competition to invest in Filton and had also expressed interest in other European sites.

Investment bank Merrill Lynch is advising Airbus on this and other parts of a restructuring plan involving 10,000 job cuts.

3-July-2007

NUREMBERG, Germany (Thomson Financial) - Engineering and defence company Diehl is interested in the Laupheim plant in Germany that EADS unit Airbus aims to sell as part of its Power8 restructuring programme, CEO Thomas Diehl has confirmed.

He said there has been no tender yet, "but when it gets that far, we will be there." Diehl is a major supplier to Airbus.

20-July-2007

PARIS (Thomson Financial) - US equipment manufacturer Spirit Aerosystems has confirmed its interest in acquiring the production sites put up for sale by EADS' Airbus under the Power8 restructuring programme, Les Echos reported, citing comments from the group's CEO Jeff Turner.

"We are interested in the sites that offer the most synergies with our know-how: that is German and French sites that manufacture fuselage and wing components," Turner said.

He added that discussions are well underway and that an initial decision should be reached in the near future.

Chinese government eyes British know-how

Mark Kleinman, in Hong Kong, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 11:33pm BST 21/07/2007

China's fledgling state-owned aircraft-maker has stepped up its interest in buying Airbus's manufacturing facility at Filton, near Bristol, deepening concerns about the prospect of western technology falling into Chinese hands.

China Aviation Industry Corp I (AVIC I), which is working on plans to challenge the global duopoly of Airbus and Boeing, is understood to have the money to take over at Filton, as well as part or full ownership of five sites in France and Germany.

An official at the Amicus trade union said this weekend that the prospect of Chinese part-ownership was "a concern" that had been discussed at a conference of the Confederation of Shipbuilding and Engineering Unions in recent days.

BEIJING (XFN-ASIA) - A planned bid by China Aviation Industry Corp I (AVIC I) to purchase Airbus' European plants has been rejected by Airbus, the China Business News reported.

Citing Li Yuhai, AVIC I's deputy general manager, the report said that Airbus rejected its bid as AVIC I 'was late in submitting its bid application.'

FRANKFURT, Aug 9 (Reuters) - European aerospace and defence group EADS (EAD.PA: Quote, Profile, Research) said it was considering the sale of an additional plant at Augsburg, in Germany, as part of a restructuring of planemaker Airbus.

The company has said it plans to sell all or part of six of Airbus's 16 European plants as part of its Power8 plan, saying the company's survival was at stake after delays to the Airbus A380 superjumbo plunged Airbus into losses last year.

OHB Wants to Acquire 3 Airbus Sites

Tuesday August 14, 11:24 am ET
Germany's OHB Wants to Acquire 3 Airbus Sites to Form 'First-Tier' Supplier

FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) -- OHB Technology AG aims to form a "first-tier supplier" for the aviation industry if it is successful in acquiring three German plants from airplane builder Airbus, the German company said Tuesday.

OHB executives told Dow Jones Newswires that the company is assessing the placement of a combined bid for three German sites in Augsburg, Nordenham and Varel to see if it can integrate them into its own units that are already producing parts for the Ariane rocket.

OHB placed bids for two northern German sites in Varel and Nordenham, where Airbus produces other equipment.

European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co. NV said last week it might include the manufacturing facility at Augsburg, in southern Germany, among the plants it wants to divest as part of Airbus's restructuring plan Power 8.

OHB Chief Executive Marco Fuchs said his company would consider making a bid if EADS -- the Franco-German parent of Airbus -- does decide to sell the Augsburg facility.

17-August-2007

LONDON (Thomson Financial) - Voith, one of Germany's largest privately held industrial groups, is interested in buying three of Airbus' German factories that are up for sale, industry sources said confirming earlier media reports.

The group is interested in the Varel and Nordenham plants as well as Augsburg, which Airbus' parent EADS said last week it is also considering selling, the sources said.

A Dubai state investment fund bought a 3.12-percent stake in Airbus parent company EADS earlier this year and Dubai-based airline Emirates is the biggest single customer for Airbus's new star product, the A380 superjumbo airliner.

In an interview with German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung, DAE chief executive Bob Johnson said the Airbus plants were "interesting for us" and that the group wanted to "buy into and develop itself" in plane production.

FRANKFURT (Thomson Financial) - Dubai Aerospace Enterprise is interested in buying plants owned by Airbus, chief executive Bob Johnson told Sueddeutsche Zeitung in an interview.
He did not provide further details.
As part of its Power 8 restructuring programme, EADS' civil aviation business wants to sell up to six of its sites, among them three German plants in Varel, Nordenham and Augsburg.
Dubai Aerospace was founded last year and is jointly owned by the state and investment companies based in Dubai.

Seems DAE is now distancing itself from the reports found yesterday/

Here's another article on DAE's interest.
http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/20...afx4050699.html

The Chinese expressed interest earlier but were rebuffed (public announcement: "we were too late". Right.) Will the German government allow these factories to be sold to Middle East interests? Will there be unpleasant consequences if they say "no"? If the UAE is rebuffed here, like the Dubai Ports deal, how will they react?

Latecoere May Seek EU300 Million to Buy Airbus Plants
By Andrea Rothman

Sept. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Latecoere SA, the French maker of doors and wiring for airliners, may raise 300 million euros ($416 million) in a share sale to fund a bid for two Airbus SAS factories.

The company wants to buy the factories at Meaulte and Saint Nazaire in France, two of six that Airbus has offered to sell. Latecoere may split the equity offering between public shareholders and several private placements, Chief Executive Officer Francois Bertrand said in a briefing.

Taking over the plants would increase the volume of work Latecoere would do for Airbus and make it one of the biggest suppliers of aerostructures such as fuselage panels. The purchase would more than double revenue to about 1 billion euros and subsequently increase sales by a further 50 percent over three years, Bertand said. Net income this year may fall because of increased debt, he also said.

``Our goal is to become a super tier-one supplier,'' Bertrand said. ``That will let us invest in composites and develop big aircraft structures.''

Bertrand said Latecoere will benefit from production increases at Airbus, Boeing Co. and Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica SA, or Embraer. Latecoere is competing with Spirit Aerosystems Holdings Inc. of the U.S. to buy the sites. Spirit is a spinoff of Boeing that does work for both Boeing and Airbus.

Core Shareholders

About 25 percent of Latecoere's shares are currently owned by a core group that includes the Latecoere family, with 5 percent. These shareholders have double voting rights, which effectively protects the company from a hostile takeover, Bertrand said.

Latecoere would seek to preserve that situation with private placements of some portion of the 300 million euros in fresh equity, he said. Latecoere is speaking to ``several'' potential investors, in France and elsewhere, Bertrand said, including Caisse des Depots et Consignations, a French bank with holdings in about half the companies in the benchmark CAC 40 Index.

Net income will ``drop slightly'' this year, he said, because the company has borrowed more heavily to invest in technologies for new airplane programs, including Boeing's 787, and Airbus's A380 superjumbo and A400M military transport.

It had debt of 392.4 million euros at the end of June and equity of 250.3 million euros.

Latecoere said 39 percent of its sales in the first half of 2007 came from Airbus, 27 percent from Embraer, 24 percent from Dassault Aviation 3 percent from Safran's Snecma unit and 2 percent from Boeing. Another 1 percent of sales was from Bombardier.

Latecoere shares fell 22 cents, or 1 percent, to 21.99 euros, valuing the company at 189.3 million euros.

18-September-2007

FRANKFURT (Thomson Financial) - EADS' planned sale of some of its German Airbus factories will take several more months, said Peter Hintze, a state secretary in the economy ministry and Berlin's coordinator in the aerospace industry.

The divestment of the plants in the German towns of Varel, Nordenham and possibly Augsburg is not a matter of days, but rather of months, he said.

PARIS (Thomson Financial) - EADS unit Airbus confirmed it is in talks with GKN, Latecoere, Spirit Aerosystems, Voith and MT Aerospace for "combined site and A350 risk sharing partner negotiations". The aircraft manufacturer said: "Suggestions that there are already identifiable frontrunners are untrue." Eleven companies responded to Airbus' initial request for bidders, Airbus said.

The process involves a search for partners for Airbus' Filton site in the UK, Meaulte and St Nazaire Ville in France, and Nordenham and Varel in Germany.

Rather than selling a trio of plants in France and Germany and seeking partners to invest in three others, Airbus said it would sell one and find investors for the other five, and maybe a sixth.

EADS Augsburg, Plant for Sale With Six Airbus Sites
By Andrea Rothman

Sept. 27 (Bloomberg) -- European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co., the parent of planemaker Airbus SAS, is offering a facility in Augsburg, Germany, for sale to companies now bidding for six Airbus sites, said Chief Executive Louis Gallois.

Airbus already has six factories up for sale, with five companies evaluating them. The Augsburg factory, which belongs to EADS's defense division, gets about 70 percent of its sales from Airbus subcontracting work. Gallois said that to safeguard the future of the facility, and ensure that it wins contracts to work on Airbus's A350, EADS thought it wise to put the factory up for sale to companies already bidding for the other sites.

Airbus needs 11.6 billion euros to develop its A350 XWB, a competitor to Boeing's 787, and wants suppliers, including the plants' buyers, to contribute 50 percent of the costs.

PARIS (Thomson Financial) - Airbus CEO Thomas Enders has written to Latecoere and Voith to ask them to revise their offers to acquire some of the aircraft manufacturer's sites in France and Germany, Le Figaro reported, without indicating its sources.

Enders has called for more realistic proposals in relation to the financial and industrial challenges involved, the newspaper reported without giving any details.

Le Figaro said that Latecoere and Voith have been seen as favourites to win the bidding to acquire respectively the French and German sites that Airbus is spinning off as part of the Power8 restructuring plan of parent company EADS.

Voith AG Ends Bid for Airbus Plants

Tuesday October 9, 6:19 am ET
Engineering Firm Voith AG Bows Out of Bid Process for German Airbus Plants

BERLIN (AP) -- The CEO of German engineering firm Voith AG said Tuesday that his company was bowing out of the bidding process for Airbus' German plants.

Hermut Kormann told reporters in Heidenheim that the company did not see any possibility to develop a concept for the plants that would satisfy both Voith and Airbus.

Under Airbus' so-called Power 8 shake up, the company plans to divest four plants in Germany, in Augsburg, Nordenham, Varel and Laupheim.

Voith AG was on the short list of contenders for the sites, which also includes German firm MT Aerospace and U.S.-based Spirit Aerosystems Inc.

Mon Oct 15

FRANKFURT (AFP) - Potential buyers are crowding around an Airbus plant in Laupheim, southern Germany, and the European plane maker should decide this year which will get the site, a press report said Monday.

The Financial Times Deutschland cited industry sources as saying 14 German and foreign concerns had expressed interest in the facility, which produces cabin equipment.

NEW DELHI, Oct 30 - Planemaker Airbus is at an advanced stage in talks over the sale of production sites in Europe, and will continue to explore cost-cutting measures, its chief executive said on Tuesday.

Airbus, a unit of European aerospace group EADS (EAD.PA: Quote, Profile , Research), is trying to sell all or part of several plants in Europe after delays to its A380 superjumbo rocked the company last year, but the process is taking longer than expected.

"We are in an advanced stage of talks. It would be good for us, good for our employees, good for our shareholders," said Tom Enders, visiting India as part of an industry delegation accompanying German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "So we must be sure we are doing the right thing," he told a news conference.

Airbus, which expects to win 70 percent of an estimated demand for 1,100 aircraft in India over the next 20 years, is also looking at other ways to save money, Enders said.

"It is very important, particularly with the dollar weakening as it has been," he said.

FRANKFURT (Thomson Financial) - Voith, the German machinery company, said it quit the bidding process for three plants of EADS's Airbus unit as the plane-maker declined to enter a long-term cooperation to run the plants, chief executive Hermut Kormann said.
He told Handelsblatt in an interview that Airbus wanted to sell off its plants at Nordenham, Varel and Augsburg quickly and completely, while Voith was interested in operating them with Airbus.
He said Airbus was not willing to agree on a cooperation for longer than two or three years.

FRANKFURT (Thomson Financial) - The German government and regional state of Lower Saxony are setting up an alliance to financially help a Bremen-based company which is competing with a US firm in buying three Airbus manufacturing facilities, Nordwest-Zeitung newspaper said, citing sources

According to this report, the German government will assist a German company in buying the 3 German EADS factories.
http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/20...afx4351858.html


Just curious...could this be construed as a subsidy? After all, if NASA giving contracts to Boeing is considered by some as a subsidy...well...see this thread.

More Subsidies To Boeing

23-November-2007

MUNICH (Thomson Financial) - EADS aircraft unit Airbus still plans to sell several production plants, a spokesman for the company said, denying earlier reports.

"There is no new situation and there are no decisions otherwise," he said.

Sueddeutsche Zeitung earlier reported, without citing sources, Airbus is considering halting the sale of some of its production plants and instead moving them into a new division. Airbus plans to sell its German plants at Varel, Nordenham, Laupheim as well as EADS's plant at Augsburg.

EADS's Airbus unit is considering halting the sale of some of its production plants and instead moving them into a new division, Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported without naming its source. Earlier today, the website of Der Spiegel reported that Airbus plans radical measures to respond to the weakness of the US dollar, citing attendees of a meeting of chief executive Thomas Enders at a workers council in Hamburg.

Enders was quoted as saying that the decline of the dollar has passed the 'pain barrier'.

'That is life-threatening,' he said according to the report.

He said Airbus is expecting 'massive losses' due to the weak dollar.

http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/20...afx4367096.html