Originally Posted by
Roger
I'm not sure where you are coming from Raz ? How did AIR get lucky ? Other airlines with a material stake have their representatives on the board.
Its been clear for about a year C.L. is not happy with the financial performance of VAH and that's only what's been said in public...
Happy for you to unpack your point of view more but luck doesn't seem to have much to do with it from what I can see. The way I see it C.L. has made a bold call that VAH has serious systemic issues and he's very unhappy with the way the CEO is managing the company.
Even if AIR just tagged along for the ride and propped VAH up some more what guarantee would they have that they'd get an acceptable commercial return on a say a further $A300m equity injection, (that's just their share) to get VAH's gearing down to 67% ? That C.L. undoubtedly backed by the AIR board made the call that enough is enough is a good sign in my opinion that they are prepared to act decisively to extricate themselves from this company and clean up this mess with the minimum possible damage, before it gets any worse. I'm not too fussed one way or the other with the special divvy although it would be nice in due course if it happens, but sending huge sum's of AIR's money to prop up an Australian company that seems both leadership challenged and riddled with systemic issues...that would be a very bad idea in my opinion and one I'm pleased they've emphatically rejected.