Paris: Aerospace group EADS held off naming a successor to chief executive Louis Gallois and preparing other moves after France asked for more time to review the politically sensitive handover, people familiar with the matter said on Thursday.
A board meeting ended with no announcement or comments from the Franco-German-led company or its leading shareholders.
Gallois is expected to hand over the CEO role to German-born Airbus chief executive Tom Enders when his mandate expires in mid-2012, allowing Airbus No 2 Fabrice Bregier, a Frenchman, to step up as the head of the world's largest commercial jetmaker and spearhead its competition with US rival Boeing.
German carmaker Daimler owns a 22.5 per cent voting stake in EADS, while the French government owns 15 per cent and French media conglomerate Lagardere owns 7.5 per cent.
Arnaud Lagardere, head of Lagardere, is expected to replace Bodo Uebber, the finance director of Daimler, as EADS chairman under a 2007 accord between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel aimed at ridding the company of past tensions.
Unexpected
The main senior appointments are not seen as in doubt, but the discussion comes at a delicate time as France and Germany, which exercise influence over EADS through a public-private shareholder pact, focus intensely on Europe's debt crisis.
"The French government has asked for more information about the way forward," a person familiar with the matter said.
An analyst of Franco-German industrial activities who is usually well briefed on political decisions affecting EADS said the French government had unexpectedly held up the process.
Rotation of posts
French media reports said the board would enact a political agreement that provides for top posts to rotate between executives from France and Germany every five years.
That would pave the way for a smooth handover in mid-2012 and avoid a repeat of past tensions at Europe's leading aerospace group, which was founded in 2000 from a merger of aerospace assets from France, Germany and Spain.
