EADS co-chief executive Noël Forgeard insists that he was initially informed about possible hold-ups to the Airbus A380 programme in April, several weeks after he and his family sold a batch of EADS shares.
Speaking today on French talk radio station Europe 1, Forgeard insisted that he was first informed of problems “sometime in April”, but was not alarmed by news of the delay, which he believed was simply the result of a bottleneck.
He said that the news “did not trigger alarm bells” and he defended his sale of EADS shares in March, claiming that the timing was an “unfortunate coincidence” and that he had “nothing to hide”.
Shares in EADS sank heavily this week after Airbus revealed that production problems would delay delivery of the A380 by several months and that delivery schedules would be badly affected over the next three years.
Forgeard’s transactions in EADS are detailed in declarations to the French stock exchange regulator l'Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) and its German counterpart Bundesanstalt fur Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht (BaFin).
Their records show that on 9 March, Forgeard exercised two tranches of stock options to acquire a total of 131,000 shares in EADS for a little over €3 million ($3.8 million).
Six days later, on 15 March, Forgeard sold two tranches of separate stock options, a total of 162,000 shares, for €5.18 million. These had originally been acquired for €2.67 million, generating net proceeds of just over €2.5 million.
AMF also records that, at the same time, three of Forgeard’s children – Marie, Cathérine and Louis – each sold 42,666 shares in a transaction valued at about €4.2 million.
“The problem [with the A380 programme] was presented during April and, at the end of May, it still appeared to be resolvable,” says Forgeard. “If I’d had privileged information I would not have sold the shares. If there is an enquiry then the documentation will be available.”
Audio download:
Hear Noël Forgeard defend his decision to sell shares in EADS in March and his view on the compications delaying the delivery of the A380, in French, in Real Player format, from Europe 1's website.
Téléchargement:
Ecoutez la chronique de Noël Forgeard, co-président exécutif d'EADS, en expliquant avoir été informé des retards dans les livraisons de l'A380 "courant avril" alors qu'il a vendu un gros lot d'actions EADS en mars.
Blog:
Read Kieran Daly, group editor of Flight, explain how a Perfect Storm appeared this week over Toulouse to produce Noël Forgeard's worse day.
Source: Flight International
