Crisis meetings at Airbus

The four bosses of Airbus parent EADS met for closed-door talks today, days after the European group was hit by costly new delays to the A380 superjumbo and questions about stock sales beforehand, the Associated Press (AP) reported.

The meeting came amid growing pressure on Noel Forgeard, the company's French co-chief executive, who made a 2.5 million euro ($5 million) profit exercising stock options in March - weeks before management ordered an internal assessment of the production hitches.

Investors wiped more than 5 billion euro off the company's market value on Wednesday after it announced a further seven-month delay to the superjumbo.

EADS made no formal statement after today's talks in Munich, attended by co-Chairmen Arnaud Lagardere and Manfred Bischoff, as well as Forgeard and his German counterpart, Thomas Enders. The company's key management and board positions are evenly split between its French and German shareholders.

Spokesman Michael Hauger told AP the meeting addressed ways to avoid any repetition of the production delays afflicting the A380, without seeking to apportion blame.

But criticism of Forgeard intensified as EADS confirmed that officials from France's Financial Markets Authority are on site at Airbus headquarters in Toulouse to pursue their investigation into the suspect share transactions, announced last week.

The regulator is also looking into the timing of a decision by core shareholders Lagardere SCA and DaimlerChrysler AG to reduce their stakes in EADS. The French defence and media group and German carmaker announced plans to sell a combined 15 per cent of the group's shares on April 4, according to AP.

Forgeard, who was chief executive of Airbus until last year, was among six EADS executives who sold large numbers of shares in March, and his children also offloaded company stock.