THE SAME FOLKS WHO SNAPPED UP ALL THE ANVILS (via Kevin Whited):

NO TAKERS: If Airbus Is Selling -- Who's Buying?: Airbus is planning to announce a new restructuring program. Smaller production sites, such as Varel and Nordenham, will probably be sold off. Experts are puzzling over who will buy them. (Matthias Streitz, 2/20/07, Der Spiegel)

But who will buy the Airbus plants? It's a riddle the aviation sector is puzzling over. "There are sure to be some interested parties," says Andreas Knorr, a Speyer-based university professor and aviation expert. It is thought likely that medium-sized or small industrial companies with some experience in armaments and aviation could make a bid. Diehl from Nuremberg, OHB Technology from Bremen and the German-Swiss Liebherr group are names that come up particularly often.

German daily Bild reported that the purchase of the Airbus plant in Varel by the Liebherr group has already been decided. The plant employs about 24,000 workers and has an annual turnover of more than €5 billion ($6.6 billion). Sources within Airbus's Hamburg works council describe this report as plausible.

But sources at Liebherr in Biberach, in the state of Baden-Württemberg, say the story is simply not true. In an e-mail to SPIEGEL ONLINE, CEO Henning Rapp writes: "The statement that Liebherr will purchase the Airbus plant in Varel is not accurate. The claim, which has appeared in several media, has no factual basis." Rapp did not answer the question as to whether Liebherr is principally interested in purchasing one of the plants and whether the possibility has been discussed.

OHB in Bremen is less tight-lipped. While a speaker there also said that "the rumor that we're interested in the purchase of an Airbus plant has no basis whatsoever," she added that, in general, OHB is "always interested in changes in the industry and keeping an eye on the options presenting themselves to us." The Bremen-based company is involved in the Ariane rocket project via a subsidiary purchased from German engineering giant MAN. OHB is already supplying Airbus with components.

A spokesperson for Diehl in Nuremberg says: "To my knowledge, there are no such plans to purchase Airbus component plants."