Delta Air Lines has successfully acquired a 20 percent equity stake in LATAM Airlines Group S.A for approximately $1.9 billion.
Delta Air Lines has successfully completed its previously announced tender offer and has acquired a 20 percent equity stake in LATAM Airlines Group S.A for approximately $1.9 billion, an important milestone toward bringing together the leading airlines in North and South America. This investment continues Delta’s strategy of making equity investments in key airline partners around the globe.
“We look forward to working with LATAM to create a truly world-class partnership that will give our customers unparalleled access throughout the Americas,” said Steve Sear, Delta President — International and Executive Vice President — Global Sales. “Equity investments like this help create alignment within our partnerships as we bring together our brands, enabling us to provide the very best service and reliability for our shared customers.”
In September, Delta and LATAM announced a strategic partnership, including the now completed 20 percent equity investment and also a commercial joint venture. Once fully implemented, this partnership will unlock growth opportunities for both airlines and offer significantly expanded travel options for customers, with access to 435 destinations worldwide.
Most recently, the carriers announced that they will initially launch codesharing for flights operated by certain LATAM affiliates in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru beginning in the first quarter of 2020. The codeshare will offer customers increased connectivity between up to 74 onward destinations in the United States and up to 51 onward destinations in South America.
The enhanced cooperation and codeshare agreements are subject to governmental and regulatory approvals.
Genesee & Wyoming Inc. (G&W) today announced the completion of its previously announced sale to affiliates of Brookfield Infrastructure and GIC.
Under the terms of the sale, each issued and outstanding share of G&W common stock converted into the right to receive $112 in cash. As a result of the completion of the sale, G&W’s common stock ceased trading on the NYSE prior to market open today and will no longer be listed for trading on the NYSE.
“This transaction is an excellent outcome for all G&W stakeholders,” said Jack Hellmann, Chief Executive Officer of G&W. “For our customers, employees, and Class I partners, the long-term investment horizon of Brookfield and GIC is perfectly aligned with the long lives of G&W railroad assets. We look forward to building on G&W’s track record of safety, service excellence and commercial growth as we become an important component of a portfolio of global infrastructure assets.”
About Genesee & Wyoming
G&W owns or leases 119 freight railroads organized in locally managed operating regions with 8,000 employees serving 3,000 customers.
G&W’s six North American regions serve 42 U.S. states and four Canadian provinces and include 113 short line and regional freight railroads with more than 13,000 track-miles.
G&W’s Australia Region serves New South Wales, the Northern Territory and South Australia and operates the 1,400-mile Tarcoola-to-Darwin rail line. The Australia Region is 51.1% owned by G&W and 48.9% owned by a consortium of funds and clients managed by Macquarie Infrastructure and Real Assets.
G&W’s UK/Europe Region includes the U.K.’s largest rail maritime intermodal operator and second-largest freight rail provider, as well as regional rail services in Continental Europe.
G&W subsidiaries and joint ventures also provide rail service at more than 40 major ports, rail-ferry service between the U.S. Southeast and Mexico, transload services, contract coal loading, and industrial railcar switching and repair. For more information, please visit www.gwrr.com.
About Brookfield Infrastructure
Brookfield Infrastructure Partners is a leading global infrastructure company that owns and operates high quality, long-life assets in the utilities, transport, energy and data infrastructure sectors across North and South America, Asia Pacific and Europe. We are focused on assets that generate stable cash flows and require minimal maintenance capital expenditures. Brookfield Infrastructure Partners is listed on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges. Further information is available at www.brookfieldinfrastructure.com.
Brookfield Infrastructure is the flagship listed infrastructure company of Brookfield Asset Management, a leading global alternative asset manager with over $500 billion of assets under management. For more information, go to www.brookfield.com.
About GIC
GIC is a leading global investment firm established in 1981 to manage Singapore’s foreign reserves. As a disciplined long-term value investor, GIC is uniquely positioned for investments across a wide range of asset classes, including equities, fixed income, private equity, real estate and infrastructure. In infrastructure, GIC’s primary strategy is to invest directly in operating assets with a high degree of cash flow visibility and which provide a hedge against inflation. GIC has investments in over 40 countries. Headquartered in Singapore, GIC employs over 1,500 people across 10 offices in key financial cities worldwide. For more information on GIC, please visit www.gic.com.sg.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Southwest Airlines Co <LUV> said Monday it will complete inspections on 38 737 airplanes it acquired from foreign air carriers by Jan. 31 that may not meet all U.S. aviation safety requirements.
The planes are part of 88 pre-owned Boeing <BA> 737 aircraft Southwest bought between 2013 and 2017 from 16 foreign carriers. The speedier checks come after inspections of 39 used planes turned up previously undisclosed repairs and incorrectly completed fixes. Southwest used multiple contractors to conduct the reviews of the planes’ maintenance records when they bought the planes.
“We have a plan in place to inspect the 47 remaining aircraft, nine of which are currently in heavy checks, no later than January 31, 2020 – five months earlier than the original FAA accepted completion date of July 1,” Southwest said in a statement on Monday.
Southwest said its inspections to date “did not stem from any suspected safety concerns with the aircraft.” It added its “continuous assessment of the ongoing inspections has revealed nothing to warrant the expedited timeline” but will meet it nevertheless.
In 2018, Southwest agreed to conduct a complete physical inspection on each of these pre-owned aircraft over a two-year period after a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) safety inspector in May 2018 discovered discrepancies in records for some of 88 aircraft.
Since then, Southwest said it has completed the nose-to-tail inspection of 41 aircraft without any findings that suggested an “adverse impact on continued safe operation.”
An Oct. 24 memo from H. Clayton Foushee, director of the FAA Audit and Evaluation Office, made public on Monday said the Southwest inspections turned up at least 30 previously unknown repairs and 42 major repairs that were found “not to meet FAA airworthiness requirements.” Some required “immediate corrective action to bring the aircraft back into compliance.”
The memo added “the data collected to date would indicate that a majority of” the planes to be inspected do not meet FAA airworthiness requirements.
The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee noted on Monday that the 2018 discovery prompted a full records review by Southwest Airlines of all 88 aircraft that found 360 major repairs previously unknown to the airline because they were not disclosed in the contractors’ initial review.
Foushee’s memo said Southwest grounded 34 planes in November 2018 for inspections. The committee said as a result some planes were grounded “for immediate maintenance to bring them into regulatory compliance as a result of these newly discovered prior major repairs.”
The FAA then sent an Oct. 29 letter to Southwest seeking additional information about the uninspected planes and questioned whether they suffered specific damage items. It also raised concerns about Southwest’s “slow pace in completing the evaluation of aircraft.”
Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker said in an Oct. 30 letter to the FAA that its concerns about Southwest’s used planes correspond “to concerns that have been brought to my attention by whistleblowers as part of my investigation into aviation safety.”
The committee said the FAA allowed Southwest to continue to operate these aircraft and as a result “Southwest Airlines appears to have operated aircraft in unknown airworthiness conditions for thousands of flights.”
The FAA said Monday that after receiving Southwest’s response it determined the airline has “met the requirements for immediate inspection and risk assessments on these aircraft.”
The FAA added it “is requiring more frequent updates on the progress of completing all the requirements.”
(Reporting by David Shepardson; additional reporting by Tracy Rucinski in Chicago; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
FILE PHOTO: A number of grounded Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft are shown parked at Victorville Airport in Victorville, California
