Commonwealth Bank’s Matt Comyn gives Virgin Australia some breathing room

CBA chief executive Matt Comyn at the company’s Sydney headquarter earlier in April. Picture: Adam Yip

If he’s not careful Matt Comynis going to get a market reputation as a corporate good guy.

Margin Call understands that the Comyn-led $15 billion Commonwealth Bank is owed in the order of $20 to $30 million by the now collapsed Virgin Australia.

But aviation industry sources tell us that the bank, which is Australia’s largest financial institution, is taking a pragmatic approach to its status as a creditor of the Paul Scurrah-led failed airline.

Virgin’s debt to CBA is believed to be secured against two of the failed airline’s aircraft; one flying under the Virgin brand and the other a Tiger plane.

The bank is believed to have been a secured lender since 2014, in a deal you might say the wheels of which have now fallen off.

Before Virgin was officially placed into the hands of administrators from Deloitte on Tuesday, we hear that Comyn’s CBA offered to defer Virgin’s loan repayments for three months to give airline management some breathing room as they sought to keep the enterprise afloat.

Virgin Australia CEO Paul Scurrah (left), administrator Vaughan Strawbridge of Deloitte(right rear) and a media advisor(female right). They will try to restructure the airline's $5bn debt and bring it back to life. Picture: John Feder

We now hear that that offer has also been extended to Virgin’s now in-the-hot-seat administrators, comprising Vaughan Strawbridge, John Greig, Sal Algeri and Richard Hughes , towards getting Australia’s second airline back in the air.

Virgin’s principal banker is the now Peter King-led Westpac, which is expected to be owed a sum much greater than that of CBA.

The Virgin collapse is Comyn’s second association with a high profile corporate collapse this year. CBA was the key lender to celebrity chef George Calombaris and millionaire entrepreneur Radek Sali’s failed restaurant and hospitality empire, Made Establishment, which is now being liquidated by KordaMentha.

The carcass of that spectacular collapse continues to be picked over, with the online auction of Made’s booze collection, said to be worth about $500,000, set to go live on Wednesday by auction house Hymans.

Almost 8,000 bottles of super premium & premium wine, spirits, beer and cider are to be flogged in the fire sale, enough to drown anyone’s financial failure sorrows.