After the EU heard words that it was time to move to real integration in Europe, two powerful companies, EADS and BAE, decided to take the first step in this direction. More precisely, they wanted to, it was, to decide to do it, but so far the process of integration between them stumbles upon a number of pitfalls.
First, you need to talk about what these two companies are.
So, EADS is a famous European aerospace company that is working on the creation of a whole group of objects. In particular, the company's specialists are working on the production of civil and military aircraft and helicopters, missiles and satellites. EADS integrates two huge modules: civil and military. The company employs more than 130 thousand employees who perform literally all stages of work: from generating an idea for another civilian or military space brainchild to translating this idea into reality. This European giant has a net annual profit of over 1 billion euros today. EADS has partnered with Russia to modernize the International Space Station. In particular, at the production facilities of EADS, whose headquarters are located in Germany and France, the creation of the Columbus module for the same ISS is being carried out. Today EADS ranks second in the world in terms of sales of products in the military-technical and civilian sphere after such an American giant as Boeing.
BAE Systems is a British defense manufacturing company that develops a wide variety of weapons, aerospace, shipbuilding and information security. BAE Systems has a turnover of approximately 22.5 billion pounds and revenues for the first half of the year were approximately 8.3 billion pounds (over 10 billion euros). The staff of the company includes about 90 thousand employees.
And now from Europe, news came that EADS and BAE may very soon unite, becoming one. Such news from the European Union caused EADS share prices to skyrocket by more than 10%. World stock exchanges were enthusiastic about the news that such a grandiose deal could take place on the European financial field. However, the economic euphoria quickly began to fade, as it turned out that there were too many obstacles of different levels for the implementation of the project to merge the two companies. Let's consider these obstacles in more detail.
The first obstacle is the so-called combination of capitalizations of the two companies going to merge. It is planned that the very amount of the merger will be equal to 35 billion euros. Capitalization disputes arose literally immediately after the announcement of a potential merger. The fact is that the British want to carry out the integration process at 40% / 60%. At the same time, 40% will correspond to the share of BAE Systems. This state of affairs did not suit the EADS representatives. According to the German side, the share of EADS cannot be less than 70%, because this does not correspond to the real financial situation. Naturally, the British do not want to sell cheap, like the continental Europeans, and therefore the disputes over the distribution of packages continue to this day.
The second obstacle can be called the fact that the merger of two large technical companies can lead to a reduction in the staff in the integrated concern. Considering that the unemployment rate in some European countries has long exceeded 20%, the new cuts may cause an even greater blow to the EU economy. In particular, Spain may be one of the first to suffer, since the Spanish state holding SEPI is part of the European aerospace and defense concern (we are talking about EADS). Even the proportional system of staff cuts at EADS enterprises will lead to increased discontent and an increase in protest moods. By the way, already today the European trade unions are expressing their concern about the possible merger of two large companies. The fact is that the owners of the controlling stakes in companies, speaking of the merger, do not yet guarantee that it will not lead to reductions.
The third obstacle is the UK's unwillingness to follow the course of total integration with continents that have enough financial problems. In this regard, London apparently understands that if BAE Systems merges with EADS, this will lead to the continental cluster of the new enterprise getting access to the American military department. The fact is that BAE Systems is working with the Pentagon to implement the F-35 project. After the merger of the two companies, it is not yet clear that the Pentagon will want to continue financing the European combined concern, which will become a world leader, overtaking the American Boeing Company. The Americans clearly do not want extra European hands to get to the US military budget, and obviously both the French and the Germans want to put their hands on this budget. In this regard, it is necessary to mention what the British experts of the Echelon company think about this. They claim that the new mega-concern is a priori aimed at creating fierce competition with American arms companies. And how far Great Britain (as the main ally of the United States) is ready to go in terms of creating serious competition for the United States in the field of armaments is a big question.
At the end of September, the heads of the defense departments of France, Great Britain and Germany met in Nicosia (Cyprus) to find a solution to integrate two European companies into one. In addition to Great Britain, Germans also express their skepticism about the advisability of combining EADS and BAE Systems. Their concern stems from the fact that official Berlin has less financial leverage in EADS. This situation has arisen due to the fact that, in addition to the German government, the Daimler concern has a certain block of shares, from which the German authorities cannot buy out the required amount of EADS securities. At the same time, the French government has the necessary financial control levers, which means, according to Berlin, it can exert some pressure on the decisions of the directorate of the new concern.
However, one decision has already been reached, which at least outwardly suits all parties to the transaction (Great Britain, Germany, Spain and France). It was decided that the governments of these countries will receive a so-called "golden share", which will allow each of the countries to veto decisions that this country does not like. Four “golden shares” will help equalize the chances of all players, but will this allow us to overcome all other contradictions?
It is reported that by the second decade of October the question of the merger may be raised again in the European Union. It remains to wait for European decisions that can redraw the map of the production and sale of weapons throughout the world.
