NYT – EADS, the parent company of Airbus, confirmed on Monday that it had received a letter from an influential shareholder urging it to sell its 46 percent stake in Dassault Aviation, the French maker of the Rafale fighter and the popular Falcon business jet.
European Aeronautic Defense and Space, which last week announced a major restructuring of its military contracting and space operations, declined to elaborate on its plans for the holding, which has a market value of around 4 billion euros ($5.3 billion). But the company did not rule out the possibility of divesting the stake in Dassault, which EADS has held for more than a decade and which management has always emphasized is a financial, rather than a strategic, investment.
