In the early 1990s, the Airbus CEO Jean Pierson said that the partnership should be closed, and Airbus Industrie should become its own company. However, the difficulties of integrating and valuing the assets of four companies, as well as legal issues, delayed the initiative. In December 1998, when British Aerospace and DASA were close to merging with each other, Aérospatiale stopped the negotiations. The French company thought that if BAe and DASA merged, that company would own 57.9% of Airbus. Aérospatiale insisted that each company own half of Airbus each. However, the problem was fixed in January 1999, when BAe merged with Marconi Electronic Systems instead. This company became BAE Systems. Then in 2000, three of the companies which made Airbus Industrie (DaimlerChrysler Aerospace, the new Deutsche Airbus; Aérospatiale-Matra, the new Sud-Aviation; and CASA) merged. This merger made EADS. EADS now owned Airbus France, Airbus Deutschland and Airbus España, which was 80% of Airbus Industrie. BAE Systems and EADS created the new company, Airbus . Both companies owned part of Airbus.