Julian Moxon/PARIS
THE FRENCH Government has tightened up the time scale for agreement on a merger between Aerospatiale and Dassault Aviation, with January 1997 now set as the new deadline.
Dassault Aviation has agreed to the new date, promising that "-the technical, financial and industrial conditions for the fusion will be in place before 1 January, 1997". The original plan had focused on completing the tie-up by 1998.
A joint Dassault Aviation/Government statement was released on 1 July, the day after the original deadline for a framework accord. It ensures that the initially strong objections to the merger by Dassault president Serge Dassault have effectively been overcome. One industry source says, however, that a "great deal of work" remains to be done before a final agreement, covering all areas of the deal, can be forged. The overall corporate structure has yet to be agreed, although most sources speculate that it will be along the German lines, with a non-executive chairman, possibly Serge Dassault, heading a supervisory board, while the day-to-day running of the business is led by an executive board of directors, headed by a chief executive, who is likely to be an outsider.
A key issue is over merging the different accounting systems of privately owned Dassault and state-owned Aerospatiale. Once these problems have been tackled, however, the two groups will become a single company able to offer an almost complete line-up of aircraft, missiles and spacecraft.
There is little overlap between product ranges to cause conflict at an operating level, a fact expected to avoid any European competition concerns. Dassault's fighters and corporate-aircraft businesses will fit with Aerospatiale's civil aircraft, missiles, helicopters, light aircraft and space operations. Dassault Electronique and Dassault Systemes are not included.
Source: Flight International
