Three private equity firms have put forward early indications of the price they are prepared to pay for Virgin Australia as part of their indicative bids that were being assessed at the weekend by administrator Deloitte.
However, some bidders, including Indian-based InterGlobe, are understood to have waived the opportunity to put an indicative price on the table because there was not enough information to do so.
Parties lobbed indicative bids on Friday, with eight non-binding offers expected.
The three parties understood to have priced their bids are the Ben Gray-backed BGH Capital, supported by the AustralianSuper, Canadian infrastructure investor Brookfield and private equity firm Bain Capital.
Other bids were expected to be from parties such as the private interests of Fortescue founder Andrew Forrest, although it remains unclear if they are serious contenders.
It is thought three shortlisted bidders will emerge from Monday. Final bids are due on June 12, with the sale completed by the end of June.
Queensland Investment Corporation is expected to start talking to short-listed bidders as part of the Queensland government’s offer of a $200m package of support for bidders who would keep the airline’s HQ in Brisbane. It was not planning to put in a first-round bid as of Friday.
Initially, 19 parties were given access to the Virgin data room.
Separately, several Virgin bidders are also believed to be pushing for the government to provide a guarantee for ticket sales to ensure that travellers can make bookings with confidence in the event the airline goes into receivership.
It is thought Virgin discussed the issue of a ticket guarantee with the government last month. But the request was rebuffed by Transport Minister Michael McCormack.
InterGlobe, which is led by Indian billionaire Rahul Bhatia, who co-founded budget carrier IndiGo, confirmed on Friday that it had “signed an agreement to participate in the sale process” for Virgin.
Singapore sovereign wealth fund Temasek, which owns 55 per cent of Virgin shareholder Singapore Airlines, is a financial backer of the BGH/AustralianSuper consortium but will not to be an equity participant in the consortium bid.
Virgin was placed into voluntary administration on April 20 with debts of some $7bn.
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