France, Germany and Britain resumed talks on Monday to find common ground on the merger of British defence firm BAE and Europe's EADS aerospace giant, which would create the world's largest aerospace firm and a viable rival to US contractor Boeing.
Few things in business and finance get hearts racing like a multi-billion euro deal. In just the past week there's been intense scrutiny of EADS possibly tying the knot with Britain's BAE in a 35-billion-euro merger. So have executives caught the "merger bug"? Markus Karlsson asks Laurence Capron, a professor of strategy at INSEAD in France and co-author of the book "Build, Borrow or Buy - Solving the Growth Dilemma".
British defence contractor BAE Systems and European plane maker EADS said Wednesday they were in talks on a possible merger that would create "a world class international aerospace, defence and security group" that could better rival US giant Boeing.
Britain's defence giant BAE system announced Friday it will pay fines to settle corruption charges with Britain's Serious Fraud Office (BSFO) and the US Department of Justice. The total amount of the fines will reach about 450 million dollars.
The United States Department of Justice is extending a corrruption probe into a 54-billion-euro arms deal between BAE, the UK's largest defence firm, and Saudi Arabia in the 1980s.
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