Toulouse. Noël Forgeard rebounded after his setbacks at the head of Airbus
Former EADS boss who became Airbus, Noël Forgeard went through turbulence in the insider trading affair related to the A380. Now 75 years old, this Lagardère boy managed to bounce back into investment banking, but much later.
The desert crossing was long for the former boss of EADS (Eruopean Aeronautics Defense & Space Company), now Airbus. Noël Forgeard was the boss of Airbus who will have collected what his ancestors, Jean Pierson in mind, had sown: success. After which came dishonor.
This polytechnician, former industry advisor to Jacques Chirac during the first cohabitation (1986-1988), is what we call a “Lagardère Boy”. A reference to the close guard of Jean-Luc Lagardère, a great industrialist who is one of the founders of EADS. After moving to Matra (Defense subsidiary of the Lagardère group), Jean-Luc Lagardère entrusted Noël Forgeard in 1998 with the general management of the Airbus consortium. Three years later, in July 2001, he became CEO of the now integrated Airbus. It was not until 2005 after a trench war against his rival Philippe Camus that he rose to the presidency of EADS, the parent company of Airbus. Drunk with power, he then pushed with all his might the A3XX project which had become A380. In the end, the largest civilian plane in the world will have brought Noël Forgeard to his doom.
In June 2006, entangled in industrial problems which ultimately cost the trifle of five billion euros, Airbus was forced to publicly announce delivery delays of several months to airline customers. This announcement immediately triggered a 26% drop in EADS stock on the stock market. But Noël Forgeard, he had sold 290,000 stock options for 3 million euros before the collapse. The Autorité des marchés financiers (AMF) then accused him of having sold his EADS shares when he had inside information on these delays.
Nicolas Sarkozy’s anger
After an indictment and years of proceedings, he and other defendants are finally white. In the meantime, Noël Forgeard was forced to resign, not without pocketing a golden parachute worth more than eight million euros which caused a scandal even in the mouth of Nicolas Sarkozy, then visiting the Airbus factories in Toulouse in April 2007.
Eight million euros, however, leaves time to see it coming. After leaving Toulouse for Paris, it took him four years to be able to bounce back. At the start of 2011, Noël Forgeard joined the bank and consulting firm Arjil, specializing in mergers and acquisitions, as a senior partner. A rebound in the form of a comeback in the business world that Noël Forgeard owes, once again, to his address book built during the Lagardère era. Since until 2005, Arjil has been owned by the group… Lagardère. Date on which the bank returned to the businessman Wladimir Mollof who therefore recruited Noël Forgeard as a member of the management committee.
Since 2006, Noël Forgeard had been discreet. “I have dedicated myself to my business angel activity and my commitment to the Schneider Electric supervisory board,” he was instructed. At Arjil, at the head of the “Aerospace and Defense” department, the former boss of Airbus has carried out eight business takeover operations. Four years later, in 2015, he changed banners and joined Financière de Courcelles, another advisory investment bank specializing in mergers and acquisitions where he was still in office in 2021. He oversees the aeronautics-defense sector.
Tomorrow: Jean-Claude Drouot