Nyt 06-07-04
La politica si aggiunge alla produzione come problema per
Airbus
MARK LANDLER
Gli
azionisti di maggioranza di EADS (European Aeronautic Defense and Space
Company), casa madre di Airbus, hanno destituito il co-presidente di EADS Forgeard e il presidente di
Airbus Humbert, in seguito al ritardo della produzione del superjumbo A380;
permane la struttura duale che dovrebbe equilibrare l’influenza francese e
tedesca nel gruppo internazionale, ma che è stata una continua fonte di
frizione politica; DaimlerChrysler è vorrebbe eliminare la doppia direzione, ma
per il momento deve attendere.
–
I nuovi dirigenti,
entrambi francesi con lunga esperienza industriale, dovranno barcamenarsi in un
guazzabuglio di regolamenti che riflettono le sensibilità politiche piuttosto
che una logica di management.
Louis Gallois, co-presidente EADS, ex presidente nel settore
aerospaziale che ha di recente diretto le ferrovie statali francesi SNCF,
dovrebbe essere in grado di affrontare i problemi produttivi di Airbus, ma non
riceverà direttamente le informazioni necessarie per la ristrutturazione di
Airbus di cui deve occuparsi da Streiff.
–
Infatti la condizione posta da
DaimlerChrysler, il maggior azionista tedesco di EADS, è che il nuovo
presidente di Airbus, Christian Streiff (con lunga esperienza nel gruppo
industriale Saint Gobain ma non nel settore aerospaziale, ma che ha
collegamenti con i dirigenti di DaimlerChrysler, dato che il suo gruppo forniva
a Mercedes Benz la componentistica), dovrà riferire a Enders, e non a Gallois.
Enders sovrintende il settore militare di EADS (elicotteri e missili) e non il
settore dell’aviazione commerciale.
–
A complicare le cose sono i dubbi sul valore complessivo di EADS
suscitati dall’offerta di €2,75 MD, ritenuta troppo bassa dagli analisti,
avanzata da EADS per l’acquisto di BAE
System, suo partner di minoranza in Airbus. L’acquisizione di BAE System, che si sta
concentrando sul redditizio mercato militare americano, consentirebbe a EADS di
possedere interamente la filiale Airbus e di controllarne maggiormente le
operazioni.
(Si sta tra l’altro discutendo quanto c’è voluto prima che
Airbus informasse EADS de ritardo sulla produzione degli A380, con il rischio
della cancellazione di un ordine da parte di un cliente, e li tentativo attuale
di Boeing di sfruttare questi ritardi per sostituire gli A380 – o A370 come
sarà chiamato dopo una ristrutturazione – con il suo 747-8, che interessa
soprattutto per la versione cargo).
Il fermento suscitato dalla
destituzione dei due dirigenti ha messo in ombra un recente importante successo
di EADS, che si è accaparrato il primo contratto diretto con il Pentagono, per
352 elicotteri leggeri, per un valore supposto di $3MD.
Nyt 06-07-04
Politics
Joins Production as Problem for Airbus
By MARK
LANDLER
FRANKFURT, July 3 — The weekend boardroom purge at Airbus and its
parent company has
eased an immediate management crisis. But analysts and industry executives
said it would do little to
solve the more deep-rooted political problems at Europe’s flagship plane maker.
–
On Sunday, the major shareholders
of Airbus’s parent, the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, ousted Noël Forgeard as co-chief
executive of EADS and Gustav Humbert as chief executive of Airbus,
after a damaging delay in the rollout of the A380 superjumbo jet.
But the shareholders did not dismantle
the dual management of EADS,
which has two chairmen and two
chief executives. That arrangement is supposed to balance French and German
influence over this cross-border enterprise, but it has been a recurring
source of political friction.
While analysts praised the replacements
for Mr. Forgeard and Mr. Humbert, the new executives — both Frenchmen with long industrial pedigrees
— must navigate a tangled web of reporting lines that seems, again, to reflect
political sensitivities rather than management logic.
This, the analysts said, could bog down
the turnaround of Airbus that EADS has promised to its shareholders.
"We’ll work hard and we’ll work
jointly to bring EADS back on course," the newly appointed
co-chief executive, Louis Gallois, said in a joint statement Monday with
the incumbent German co-chief, Thomas Enders. "Our immediate priority is
Airbus. We need to stabilize the A380."
Mr. Gallois, a former aerospace executive who most recently ran
the French rail company SNCF, would be well placed to tackle the
manufacturing problems at Airbus, according to analysts.
The trouble is, the newly named head
of Airbus, Christian Streiff, will report to Mr. Enders, not to Mr. Gallois. Mr. Enders oversees the
military side of EADS, which makes helicopters and missiles, rather than the commercial aviation side.
–
That was a condition of the main German shareholder of
EADS, DaimlerChrysler (the major French shareholders are the Lagardère
Group and the French state). DaimlerChrysler had hoped to eliminate
the two-headed management, but agreed to leave that for
another day. "This was a pragmatic solution," said a spokesman for
DaimlerChrysler, Hartmut Schick.
–
Mr. Streiff, though he has long experience at the French
industrial conglomerate Saint-Gobain, has no background in aerospace.
Part of his appeal to DaimlerChrysler is that his company has supplied
components to its Mercedes-Benz car unit, and he has ties to executives there.
"There’s an odd
contradiction," said Nick Cunningham, an analyst at Panmure Gordon in
London. "Gallois is clearly good news, but how is he supposed to sort out
Airbus if it’s not reporting to him?"
Mr. Cunningham added that "none of
these guys walk on water, and the problems at Airbus run pretty deep."
–
Further complicating matters, EADS is in negotiations to
buy out its minority partner in Airbus, BAE Systems, for 2.75 billion euros
($3.5 billion) as BAE turns its focus to the lucrative American military
market. That valuation, calculated by the investment
bank Rothschild, surprised analysts as being low, and it has sowed uneasiness
about the value of EADS as a whole.
Shares of the company plunged in trading
in Paris on Monday before recovering much of the loss later in the day.
Whatever their reservations, analysts
said the shake-up was crucial to stabilizing EADS. Reports that Mr. Forgeard
sold shares in EADS before the announcement of the A380 delay eroded the
confidence of investors, though Mr. Forgeard said there was no link between the
events.
Removing Mr. Forgeard was "just an
essential move to make," said Richard Aboulafia, an analyst at the Teal
Group in Fairfax, Va. "The perception was that Forgeard was not acting in
the interests of shareholders."
–
The turmoil overshadowed a landmark victory for EADS. Last
week, it won its first direct contract from the Pentagon, to supply up to 352
light utility helicopters. The contract could be worth $3 billion.
Several analysts view the buyout of BAE
Systems as a chance for EADS to gain control over a wayward child. Once Airbus becomes a wholly owned
subsidiary of EADS, the company will be able to exercise more control over its
operations. Among the disputes surrounding the delay of the A380 was how
long it took Airbus to inform the EADS board.
"We will certainly be able get into
the day-to-day operational business of Airbus" after the buyout, said
Christian Poppe, the head of communications at EADS in Munich. "The
control will be more intensive."
By all accounts, Airbus needs a firm hand
on the tiller. The company,
which is based in Toulouse, France, must solve a wiring problem in the A380
that has thrown back its production schedule by six months. Customers are
furious; at least one has threatened to cancel orders for the 555-seat plane.
Airbus is also scrambling to revamp the
design for its new midsize plane in time to introduce it at the Farnborough Air
Show in England in mid-July. The plane — which has been known as the A350 but may now take the name A370
— was overhauled from nose to tail after Airbus customers like Singapore
Airlines said it did not measure up to Boeing’s rival 787.
These multiple demands are stretching
engineers at Airbus. Rewiring the A380 is a particularly painstaking task. The
wires are bundled into "harnesses" that run the length of the
aircraft. With airlines demanding customized electronic features, the wiring
varies from plane to plane.
"It’s clear that many things are
going on at the same time," a spokeswoman for Airbus, Barbara Kracht,
said. "But I wouldn’t say this wiring issue and the definition of the A350
are the same."
She said that Airbus had not heard about
any looming cancellations of A380 orders from customers. The chief commercial
officer of Airbus, John J. Leahy, was on the road meeting with airlines on
Monday.
The next few weeks will be critical to determining whether Boeing can
exploit the delays in the A380. Boeing is promoting the
747-8, a stretch version of its jumbo jet, as an alternative to the A380. The plane has
attracted little interest from airlines, except in a freighter version.
"If someone like Cathay Pacific
were to come on board, that would be extremely bad news for the A380," Mr.
Aboulafia said.
New York Times