The story
Hawker Siddeley (which merged with British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) in 1977 to form British Aerospace) was part of the first Airbus project, the Airbus A300. The British government withdrew support in 1969 but Hawker Siddeley was allowed to continue as supplier of the aircraft's wings due to the advanced stages of design and the reluctance of other nations to take over the wing design. In 1979 BAe rejoined the Airbus Industrie GIE consortium. In 2001, after the merger of Airbus Industrie GIE's French and German parent companies, which led to the formation of EADS (now rebranded Airbus), it became Airbus S.A.S., the Airbus Integrated Company; a subsidiary majority-owned by EADS in which the newly formed BAE Systems (British Aerospace and Marconi Electronic Systems merger in 1999) held a 20% minority share.
Airbus UK started work on the wings for the Airbus A380 in August 2002.
In April 2006 BAE Systems announced its intention to sell its share of Airbus SAS to EADS. BAE originally sought to agree a price with EADS through an informal process. However, due to the slow pace of negotiations and disagreements over price, BAE exercised its put option which saw investment bank Rothschild appointed to give an independent valuation.
On 2 July 2006 Rothschild valued BAE's stake at £1.9 billion (€2.75 billion); well below the expectation of BAE, analysts and even EADS. On 5 July 2006 BAE appointed independent auditors to study why the value of its share of Airbus had fallen from the original estimates to the Rothschild valuation. On 6 September 2006 BAE agreed to sell its stake in Airbus to EADS for £1.87 billion (€2.75 billion, $3.53 billion), pending BAE shareholder approval. On 4 October shareholders voted in favour of the sale.
From Wikipedia’s article on Airbus UK, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4