EADS boss under fire as share trading probed

The co-chief executive of Airbus parent EADS clung to his post in the face of probes announced yesterday into its recent stock collapse, saying he was unaware of costly delays to the A380 superjumbo jet until after he had sold shares.

Frenchman Noel Forgeard said he had nothing to fear from any insider trading probe after reducing his family's shareholdings in March, and lifted the veil on internal discussions in a bid to show that future deliveries had been considered intact.

Rejecting investor and union calls to resign, Mr Forgeard insisted he had received no inkling of either the delays or a shake-up of holdings by EADS industrial shareholders, which came days after he sold shares and weighed on EADS stock in March.

"It was an unfortunate coincidence. Obviously if I had had the least privileged information, I would not have sold the shares," Mr Forgeard said on Europe 1 radio.

The rerun of A380 delays seen last year stripped a quarter of the value, or over five billion euros, from Europe's largest aerospace group as investors panicked on Wednesday.

French and German authorities both announced probes into EADS stock trading yesterday.

French regulator AMF said its own investigation had started some weeks ago but would cover this week's share turmoil too.

"The problems of delays were put on the table during April, and at the end of May many people still thought it was possible to resolve them. The detailed work reached its conclusions on June 13 and we published them on the same day," Mr Forgeard said.

On Wednesday, he told analysts EADS had come "very suddenly and recently" to the conclusion delays were now inevitable.

EADS has launched its own investigation into the delays, which followed Airbus assurances in May that the €12 billion programme to build the world's largest airliner was on track.

EADS shares fell 0.5 per cent to €19.9 on Friday. They have recovered six per cent from Wednesday's closing low.

The worst crisis to hit Europe's aerospace giant since its inception in 2000 has been inflamed by questions over who knew what when and by growing political unease over the mess at Airbus.

In an unusual move highlighting the Franco-German battle lines often seen in EADS, Mr Forgeard put out a statement late yesterday disclosing that Airbus had told the EADS executive committee on March 17 that A380 deliveries were safe. Airbus is represented on the panel by its German head Gustav Humbert.

Spain, a junior partner to France and Germany in EADS, offered help in sorting out the crisis, and a German minister called on EADS to sort itself out quickly.

In France, opposition Socialists called for a parliamentary inquiry and a small shareholder group said EADS leaders should either be fired for incompetence or jailed for dishonesty.

Regulatory filings show that Mr Forgeard made €2.5 million from the sale of 162,000 shares from 2002-03 stock option plans on March 15. But on March 9 he also bought 131,000 shares.