EADS’s main private sector shareholders have agreed in principle to a single management structure in which Tom Enders, the German co-chief executive officer, would head the company, according to a report in the International Herald Tribune.

Under a plan to streamline EADS, the newspaper said that the chief executive would be named by DaimlerChrysler, the leading German shareholder, and the chairman of EADS would be chosen by Lagardère together with the French State. Sources close to the negotiations between EADS shareholders said: “A French-German entente has been reached . . . it is a done deal.”

The French and German partners have been wrangling over how best to balance influence over EADS, the owner of Airbus, the world’s biggest aircraft maker, for some time. The French State owns 15 per cent of EADS, while Lagardère, France’s largest publisher, owns 7.5 per cent and votes the government stake. DaimlerChrysler, the world’s second-biggest maker of luxury cars, owns 15 per cent and voting rights for another 7.5 per cent.

The deal is expected to lead to the appointment of Mr Enders as sole chief executive of EADS, with fellow chief Louis Gallois to remain as head of the Airbus unit.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the newly elected French President, had been pushing for Mr Gallois to be named sole chief.

EADS, DaimlerChrysler and Lagardère were not available for comment.

The management and shareholder structure of EADS is to be discussed at a Franco-German summit at Airbus’s headquarters on July 16, to which Mr Sarkozy has invited DaimlerChrysler and Lagardere to join him and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor.

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