While the delay must leaving FAB in a more difficult position (“When will we get something?”) it will be interesting to see how Brazil views the Dassault offer to match Gripen price in Switzerland as that story unfolds. Perhaps the negotiators on the Brazilian side will get an idea of how low Dassault’s lowest price really is. Still, Dassault would make up for being forced to offer a lower price to get the deal in other ways, no doubt.

what has to be seen is what version of the rafale is offered at such a price.

If they get a stripped down Rafale which can only perform air to air and a very limited array of air to ground missions, they may not find it so interesting. According to this site:

http://www.opex360.com/2012/09/24/suisse-dassault-aviation-propose-le-rafale-au-prix-dun-gripen/

Dassault offered three possibilities to the swiss… with different “levels” of Rafale…

One should not forget that Dassault is still negotiating with India and proposing a fully capable rafale for the price of a Gripen to the swiss would obviously trigger some problems in the huge indian market…

he’s being sarcastic, obviously… 😀

errors are numerous, but on the other hand, restarting the F22 line isn’t exactly a politically viable solution as the F-35 is claimed to do pretty much everything (argument supposed to justify the continuation of the program regardless of its delays and cost overruns), everything except coffee for the pilot… (must be optional, I guess 😀 )

And again, in Switzerland the Army recommends the product, the Politics chooses it, and the population validates the decision. This additional step makes all the difference, really. The Gripen does the job, has the better cost/efficient ratio, and is the cheapest to operate. That’s all what matters to voters.

It does sound nice, but, as leaks have shown, the military have recommended another product… and they also shed some light on the manner in which the criteria have been shifted during the process to favor a particular product regardless of the recommendations and its ability do to the job required… from there on, it becomes complicated for the politicians to justify their decisions and that is also what feeds the suspicions of corruption

well, what he says also is that:

“Cela étant, pour le Conseil national, les questions soulevées dans le rapport de la sous-commission restent ouvertes, notamment la série d’incohérences qui y sont énumérées.

Entre autres, au cours de la procédure, des critères de sélection ont été modifiés, de même que la pondération de certains barêmes d’évaluation. “

(strangely you seem to have missed that one, right in between the two quotes you posted)

“For the National council, the questions raised in the report of the committee remain unanswered, especially the series of inceherencies which have been listed.

Among others, during the procedure, the selection criteria have been modified, as well as the importance of some evaluations points”

one can also quote another paragraph a bit lower:

““Il y a bien des indices de corruption, mais aucune preuve” a affirmé Jean-Pierre Méan, le président de Transparency International Suisse, dont les propos ont été rapportés par plusieurs journaux hélvètes. “Il existe certains points d’interrogation. Car, quand la corruption entre en jeu, on voit exactement les mêmes procédés que ceux que l’on observe en Suisse” a-t-il ajouté”

“There are signs of corruption, but no proof”, said Jean-Pierre Méan, the president of Transparency International Suisse, whose words have been reported by several swiss newspapers. “There are certain questions to be answered. because when there is corruption, one can observe exactly the same proceedings as those seen in Switzerland”, he added”

in the end, the last two paragraphs, they remind that SAAB claims that they’ll cooperate to any investigations and that they are “clean”, as “SAAB isn’t involved in any bribery affair to this day and no SAAB employee has been found guilty of bribery…”

In the same time, the article says that SAAB admitted in 2011 that they paid 2.5 million euros in bribes to south african air force for the gripen to be selected, even if they rejected the responsibility on BAe at the time…

But BAe are not buying 40% of EADS. BAe will be 40% of the combined company.

that is what I’m saying, it was posted by giganick1 that BAe would have 40% of EADS besides the 40% of the combined company…

Daimler is desperate to exit with it’s 22.5% stake, this may also have implications for Sogepa as the Franco-German shareholder pact would probably also be liquidated.

I don’t envisage this tie-up leading to any grandiose projects like ‘Eurofighter2′, for BAE SYSTEMS this is more about having access to EADS’ healthy balance sheet that will enable it to make more acquisitions in up and coming sectors & companies involved in cybersecurity, radars and comms.

It may allow EADS access to the lucrative US market, which is all the more reason the likes of LM and Boeing will do their utmost to stifle this deal (tankers anyone?)

EADS was downgraded from ‘buy’ to ‘neutral’ this morning (LTP @ EUR25.66, -8.36% at time of posting).

desperate? really? if it was true and if it could just sell, it would have been out of it long time ago, now, you have three posibilities

– they don’t want to sell
– they can’t sell as the decision is a political one
– both of the above

make your choice, but in any case, BAe owning 40% of EADS is pretty much impossible any time soon (if ever)

the only thing said about shares in that merging is that EADS would represent 60% and BAe 40% of the new company

er, AFAIK over 50% of EADS is owned by european companies which represent more or less “national policies” so to speak… none of them will sell, which leaves a whole bunch of shareholders like dubai, some russian investors, employees, etc… having some 49% of shares… how, in such environment, could BAe expect to have 40% of EADS? They’d need to buy more or less all shares left..

http://www.eads.com/eads/int/en/investor-relations/share-information/shareholder-structure.html