* EADS maintains targets, H1 profit down 23 percent
* Shares rise 7 percent as Airbus parent cuts cash burn forecast
* New provision on A400M, more seen in H2
* Key shareholders cleared in insider trading probe
(Adds lawyer comment, EADS comment, combines items)
By Tim Hepher and Matthias Blamont
PARIS, July 28 (Reuters) - Airbus parent EADS rallied investors by hiking cash forecasts and maintaining other goals on Tuesday, despite only temporarily putting off a major defence writedown and expressing concerns over A380 superjumbo costs.
The reassurances, given as the aviation industry endures a punishing financial crisis, diverted attention from a 23 percent drop in operating profit in the first half and pushed shares in Europe's largest aerospace group up by as much as 7 percent.
In a separate boost, the company's two most important industrial shareholders -- French media group Lagardere and German car firm Daimler -- announced they had been provisionally cleared of insider trading.
Lagardere owns 7.5 percent and Daimler owns 22.5 percent of EADS, which suffered a dramatic fall in share prices in June 2006 when it announced worsening delays in A380 deliveries.
The 2006 share price fall triggered a probe into what executives and core shareholders knew before selling stock.
A lawyer with access to the judicial file said French regulator AMF had provisionally concluded seven people, including former co-CEO Noel Forgeard, had dealt shares while in possession of confidential information.
He is among five people targeted in a separate criminal probe, all of whom deny wrongdoing.
The lawyer said serving Airbus Chief Executive Tom Enders, who last year dubbed the probe a "show trial", had been cleared.
EADS said it reaffirmed confidence in managers involved in the affair. The AMF will give a definitive report at end-year.
The lengthy probe has had little visible day-to-day impact on EADS, but the lack of resolution had kept the embers warm on Franco-German tensions that once threatened to break apart the company, only a few years after its creation in 2000.
Tensions between French and German factories were at the heart of the A380 production crisis that wiped a quarter off EADS's value and led to a series of management shake-ups.
Chief Executive Louis Gallois said on Tuesday EADS was still delivering A380s at too high a cost and ordered a review.
But EADS reaffirmed its goal of delivering 14 A380s in 2009 and at least matching a record total of 483 Airbus deliveries it made last year, leading to "roughly stable" group revenues.
It said it would consume 1 billion euros ($1.43 billion) of free cashflow in 2009 instead of 1.5 billion earlier forecast.
At 1345 GMT its shares were up 3.5 percent at 13.17 euros.
A400M PROVISIONS
Three years after the A380 crisis, it is a military plane, the delayed A400M troop and heavy equipment lifter, which poses the greatest financial risk to EADS, Gallois told analysts.
EADS has booked 2.4 billion euros of charges on Europe's costliest defence project, running four years late, including 71 million in the second quarter. It faces major new provisions once negotiations with buyers are concluded around end-2009.
Seven European NATO nations that ordered the heavy airlifter agreed on Friday to renegotiate the contract. Cancelling it would have forced EADS to pay back 6 billion euros of advances.
"The A400M has been a big concern. It is now more obvious that the contract will not be cancelled as some had speculated," said Markus Turnwald, analyst at DZ Bank in Frankfurt.
First-half group operating profit fell 23 percent to 888 million euros with revenues rising 2 percent to 20.195 billion euros. Cost cuts failed to offset recent dollar weakness and lower plane prices. Net profits fell 6 percent to 378 million.
Airbus remains the world's biggest manufacturer of large passenger jets ahead of Boeing as it heads for another year of record deliveries which dominate EADS revenues. But these are from a previous order boom and current markets look bleak.
"Even if traffic recovers, we know some airlines are weak and we will appreciate the length and the depth of the crisis next year. We can't have a full evaluation today," Gallois said.
Low-cost Ryanair reminded investors of that with a profit warning on Monday, hitting the sector.
EADS said it was sticking to a target of up to 300 new jet orders in 2009, though some analysts say the figure is symbolic since the busier first half only yielded 90 orders and it will not affect revenues for some years due to production lag times.
Boeing last week beat expectations with a 17 percent rise in second-quarter profit but to the disappointment of some analysts did not say when its delayed 787 would fly. ($1=.7004 euros)
(Editing by Marie Maitre) (Additional reporting by Dominique Vidalon, Hendrik Sackmann, Maria Sheahan, Thierry Leveque, Editing by Marie Maitre)