A float of Virgin Australia has been pushed back by about a year, say sources, after the carrier recently entered talks with Rex about taking on some assets from the failed regional carrier.
Before this, on the back of the Guzman y Gomez initial public offering, there were attempts to get a Virgin float on the runway before Christmas.
It comes with anticipation that Qatar Airways may buy an interest in Virgin after DataRoom revealed in August last year the pair were in talks.
Sources believe Virgin executive Paul Jones is in pole position to become the new chief executive of the airline that Bain Capital bought out of administration during 2020.
Bain paid $700m in equity for Virgin and took on its $5.15bn of debt, and had planned to re-list the carrier last year.
It hired Goldman Sachs, UBS and Barrenjoey – the same bank on Guzman y Gomez – for the float, while retail brokers including Wilson’s Advisory, Ord Minnett and Shaw and Partners were on the ticket.
The plan has been for Virgin Australia to have about $1.97bn in borrowings, with a $3bn-odd valuation. However, it called off the deal amid weak market conditions, and chief executive Jayne Hrdlicka dealt with the passing of her husband and stepped down in February.
Virgin Australia is the country’s second-largest carrier with 19 million passengers, 66 routes and 7000 staff.
A valuable part of Virgin is its loyalty program – it is Australia’s third largest, and has 11 million members with 80 partnerships.
Last year, Virgin Australia was understood to be generating about $400m in annual net income.
Mystate to merge
The merger between small banks Mystate and Auswide Bank has been years in the making.
A transaction has never worked in the past because the Auswide share price was about 20 per cent higher than the Tasmanian lender, and the merger ratio would have been about 1.2 Mystate shares for every Auswide share. But now it receives 1.1.
Queensland’s Auswide has fewer shares and its share price has been higher. The transaction comes with urgency felt by the pair to get a deal done with the net interest margins going down and the cost income ratios going up for small lenders.
Will it be enough to make it substantially more competitive in the broader market?
Unlikely, say the experts.
Woodside fielding offers for LNG development stake
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Rio potentially eyeing off big lithium plays
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