European aircraft manufacturing consortium Aero International Asia, which includes Airbus Industrie members British Aerospace and French group Aerospatiale, has emerged as the major partner with China in its US$2.5 billion 100-seater passenger aircraft project.
Aero's stake had been doubled to 40 per cent after negotiations on the co-production deal between Beijing and Seoul collapsed last month, sources said yesterday.
According to a letter of intent on the shareholding structure signed recently, state-owned Aviation Industries of China (Avic) is expected to hold the majority stake of 45 per cent, Aero 40 per cent, and Singapore Technologies Aerospace 15 per cent.
'The basic shareholding structure has been agreed to, but small changes such as adding or subtracting small shareholders will not be ruled out,' a source in Beijing said.
He said if more small shareholders were to be included, the three big shareholders would each yield 5 per cent.
Beijing would remain the largest shareholder, with the assembly lines located in China.