in direct competition with Lockheed Martin’s F-35.
According to France24, France has sold “24 Dassault Rafale fighter jets to Egypt along with a multi-mission naval frigate and missiles in a deal worth more than €5 billion, President François Hollande said on February 12, 2015, that this is the first time a foreign buyer has been found for the French-built warplanes. In light of the ISIS threat in Libya, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi personally approved the deal. Hollande said in a statement issued by his office that ‘the Rafale fighter jet has won its first export contract.’
The deal follows years of failed attempts by France to export the Rafale, described by some as one of the most effective and sophisticated fighter jets in the world, but also one of the most expensive. A potential deal to sell the multipurpose warplanes to Brazil fell through in 2013 when the country chose jets made by Sweden’s Saab instead. Dassault manufacturer of the Mirage and Rafale fighters, which launched the Rafale in 1995, has been in exclusive negotiations with India for the last three years, a final deal has yet to be signed. The French government has reduced its order for the planes to 26 Rafale jets over the next five years, down from 11 a year so far, putting Dassault under further pressure to find a foreign buyer.”
Benedikt Kammel of Bloomberg News wrote, “Airbus controls 42 percent of Dassault stock shares. Airbus, which said last year it would pare the Dassault holding as it focuses more squarely on passenger jets, has also committed to selling up to 10 percent more shares by June 30 2015, subject to market conditions. ‘This transaction marks an important step in our stated intentions to monetize our stake in Dassault Aviation,’ Airbus strategy chief Marwan Lahoud said in the statement. ‘We have retained market and timing flexibility, together with support from Dassault, which should allow us to optimize further monetization steps during 2015.’ Dassault, controlled by the French family of the same name, which had a 50.55 percent holding, gets more than 66% of sales from corporate jets including the Falcon range. While Airbus doesn’t make corporate planes, it competes with Dassault through the role of its German and Spanish arms in the Eurofighter Typhoon co-produced with London-based BAE Systems Plc and Finmeccanica SpA of Italy.’
