Airbus parent EADS failed to rouse its share price today after the company forced out two top executives blamed for a two-week crisis over A380 superjumbo production blunders.
EADS co-chief executive Noel Forgeard quit yesterday after losing a bitter struggle to keep his post at Europe's aerospace giant, and the man who had replaced him as the head of Airbus a year ago, Gustav Humbert, resigned in Mr Forgeard's wake.
EADS appointed French railways chief and aeronautics expert Louis Gallois to replace Mr Forgeard and the former number two at glassmaker Saint-Gobain, Christian Streiff, to shore up the industrial processes at Toulouse-based Airbus.
Analysts welcomed the boardroom shake-up but also expressed concerns over a lower-than-expected valuation on Airbus implied by a separate weekend announcement on the terms under which BAE Systems could sell its 20 per cent Airbus stake to EADS.
A report by investment bank Rothschild valued BAE's stake at €2.75 billion, sharply below the €5 billion value estimated by some analysts. EADS plans to pay for the stake in cash.
CM-CIC Securities raised its rating on EADS to "accumulate" from "reduce", saying the boardroom changes removed some uncertainty over the stock.
However, several others focused on Airbus's lower-than-expected valuation, which also sent shares in BAE Systems down more than 6 per cent at one stage.
The leading European aerospace group's shares initially rose as much as 1.7 per cent but then fell back by more than 2 per cent. They were down 1.38 per cent at €22.15 for a time this morning.