Tag: Europe (Page 25 of 25)

Ryanair, CEO Suit Filed In U.S. Court

November 7, 2018 / WIL BALDWIN

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Ryanair Holdings Plc (RYA.I) and longtime Chief Executive Michael O’Leary have been sued in New York by a shareholder that said Europe’s largest airline defrauded investors and inflated its share price by overstating its ability to manage labour relations and keep costs down.

The complaint was filed on Tuesday night in the U.S. District Court in Manhattan by an Alabama pension fund, seeking class-action status and damages for investors in Ryanair’s American depositary shares from May 30, 2017 to Sept. 28, 2018.

Ryanair did not immediately respond on Wednesday to requests for comment.

The complaint said Ryanair misled investors in regulatory filings and conference calls about its labour stability, including “industry leading” contracts with pilots and cabin crews, and its positive impact on operations.

It said the truth came out as labour unrest forced the Dublin-based low-cost carrier last December to recognise unions for the first time, and led this summer to costly strikes that stranded thousands of passengers in several countries.

“Unbeknownst to investors, the company’s historical profit growth was built on an undisclosed and unsustainable foundation of worker exploitation and employee turnover,” the complaint said. “The decline in the price of Ryanair ADSs was the direct result of the nature and extent of defendants’ fraud finally being revealed to investors and the market.”

Ryanair cited labour issues on Oct. 1, when it cut its full-year profit forecast. Its share price closed that day more than one-third below its level in mid-March.

O’Leary, Ryanair’s chief executive since 1994, said last month he hoped to reach labour agreements with all of the carrier’s major unions before Christmas.

ADSs on June 30 accounted for 43.7 percent of Ryanair’s issued ordinary shares, assuming all were converted into ordinary shares, the company has said. Ryanair’s market value is roughly $16 billion, according to Refinitiv data.

The lawsuit was filed by the City of Birmingham Firemen’s and Policemen’s Supplemental Pension System. Its law firm Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd specializes in securities fraud.

It is common for shareholders to sue companies in the United States after what they consider unexpected share price declines.

The case is City of Birmingham Firemen’s and Policemen’s Supplemental Pension System v Ryanair Holdings Plc, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. 18-10330.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; editing by Bill Berkrot)

Low-Cost Viva Air Looks To Expand In South America

November 2, 2018 / WIL BALDWIN

BOGOTA, Nov 2 (Reuters) – Low-cost airline Viva Air, which operates in Colombia and Peru, is looking to expand its operations to a third country in 2020, its chief executive officer said late on Thursday.

The airline, owned by Irelandia Aviation LLC of Dublin , is spending $5.2 billion to buy 50 Airbus planes which it hopes will help make it the top low-cost carrier in Latin America, chief executive Felix Antelo said at an event in Bogota. It has already obtained seven of those planes.

“Our bases are Colombia and Peru. We’re looking at a third country that we can’t name. In 2019 consolidating Colombia and Peru will be the focus and from 2020 onward we could see a third country,” Antelo said.

Viva Air operates 32 routes in Colombia, Peru and to destinations including Miami with 19 planes and 800 employees.

It will have served 4 million passengers in Colombia and 900,000 in Peru by the end of the year, Antelo said, adding fares within Colombia can be as low as $10 including taxes.

Irelandia Aviation’s low-cost carriers – including Europe’s Ryanair, Asia’s Tiger Airways, Allegiant in the United States and Mexico’s VivaAerobus, have transported more than a billion people.

(Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta Writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; Editing by David Gregorio)

Image from Airbus

Hyatt Hotel’s Q3 Earnings Surpass, Revenues Miss Estimates

October 31, 2018 / WIL BALDWIN

Hyatt Hotels Corporation (H) posted mixed third-quarter 2018 results, wherein earnings surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate while revenues lagged the same. With this, the bottom line exceeded the consensus mark for 11 straight quarters, while the top line lagged the same for the third consecutive quarter.

Adjusted earnings of 33 cents per share outpaced the consensus estimate of 25 cents by 32%. The bottom line also grew 37.5% on a year-over-year basis. Total revenues of $1,074 million inched up 0.5% from the prior-year quarter figure but missed the consensus estimate of $1,092 million.

Click the link below for the full story!

Hyatt Hotel’s 3Q Earnings Report

Image from www.hyatt.com

Ryanair Launches Massive 24 Hour “Million-Air” Sale

October 22, 2018 / WIL BALDWIN

Ryanair, Europe’s No 1 airline, today (22 Oct) launched a massive one day “Million-Air” seat sale with over 1 million seats on sale for just £9.99 across its European network for travel from November to March, ensuring even more savings for its customers.

These incredible £9.99 fares are available for booking from now until midnight (24:00hrs) Tuesday (23 Oct) and can only be found on the Ryanair.com website.

Ryanair’s Robin Kiely said:

“We’ve launched a ‘Million-Air’ seat sale with one million £9.99 seats across our entire European network for travel from November to March, ensuring Ryanair customers can holiday like millionaires, on the lowest fares.

This amazing offer will end at midnight (24:00hrs) on Tuesday (23 Oct), so customers should log on quickly and bag a bargain break.”

Book Here: www.ryanair.com/gb/en/plan-trip/explore/flight-deals-and-sales

Ryanair Hopes To Close Union Deals By Christmas

October 22, 2018 / WIL BALDWIN

DUBLIN (Reuters) – Ryanair (RYA.I) hopes to reach deals with all of its major unions by Christmas, its chief executive said on Monday, in a sign an end may be in sight to disruptions which have hit its profit and shares.

The Irish low-cost carrier, Europe’s largest, on Monday reported a 7 percent fall in profits in the six months to Sept. 30 on high fuel costs and intense competition.

But it said these factors were helping it to resolve its industrial relations troubles.

“Given the adverse environment that’s out there for airlines and the number of job losses being reported in recent weeks both by pilots and cabin crew, there is a much more sensible, common sense approach being taken by the unions,” Chief Executive Michael O’Leary said in a video presentation.

O’Leary said that recent progress in talks left Germany and Belgium as the only two large markets for the airline where recognition agreements had not been secured.

“We would be hopeful of concluding agreements with them this side of Christmas,” he added.

The fall in profit was less than the 9 percent drop forecast by analysts and Ryanair shares were 4.2 percent higher at 12.00 euros at 1100 GMT.

Ryanair’s shares are almost 40 percent down from a peak of 19.39 euros in August last year before the industrial relations issues began.

A staff revolt forced management to recognise unions for the first time last December and the airline has since struggled to put in place union recognition agreements.

A spokesman for Belgium’s LBC-NVK union said it was waiting for an offer from Ryanair on Thursday and had warned the airline they could strike again if there is no progress.

A spokesman for German unions VC said he saw “no real progress” in talks with Ryanair, which also needs to secure recognition deals in the Netherlands and Sweden.

On Friday it said it had reached agreement with British, Portuguese and Italian pilots and was close to a deal with Spanish pilots, although the British union said the deal had not been approved by its members yet.

Ryanair issued a profit warning on Oct. 1 citing damage to bookings from strikes and cutting its forecast for full-year profit by 12 percent.

But on Monday, O’Leary said much of the weakness of recent weeks was sector-wide rather than specific to Ryanair.

Over-capacity in European short-haul will push Ryanair fares down by 2 percent in the six months to March 31 compared to the same period last year, O’Leary forecast. He warned he would not rule out a 3 percent fall.

“We are entering into a grim winter in terms of declining air fares,” he told an analyst conference call. “But moving into the summer of 2019 I would expect to see some upward traction on pricing… following oil prices with a 12-month lag.”

Ryanair, which makes most of its profit in the summer, reported a profit of 1.2 billion euros ($1.38 billion) in the six months to Sept. 30, better than the 1.127 billion euros forecast in a company poll of more than 10 analysts.

($1 = 0.8685 euros)

(Additional reporting by Ilona Wissenbach and Daphne Psaledakis; Editing by Amrutha Gayathri and Alexander Smith)

Image from https://www.ryanair.com/us/en/

Airbus Picks Guillaume Faury As Next CEO

October 8, 2018 / WIL BALDWIN

PARIS (Reuters) – Planemaking boss Guillaume Faury was named as the next chief executive of Airbus on Monday, ending months of uncertainty over the leadership of Europe’s largest aerospace group and underlining the dominance of its commercial jet arm.

The 50-year-old Frenchman will replace German-born Tom Enders when he retires at the next shareholder meeting in April 2019, the Franco-German-Spanish company said in a statement.

Chairman Denis Ranque, a Frenchman, will step down when his own term expires in 2020, it added.

The announcement came after the board brought forward discussions on the handover amid a growing leadership vacuum in the wake of a series of management departures, internal and external graft probes and the pre-announced exit of Enders.

It did so as the board grappled with the need to avoid appearing indecisive following months of uncertainty over the top job and a string of mid-level and senior departures.

On Sept. 28, Reuters exclusively reported Airbus was moving swiftly towards appointing Faury as its next CEO and could announce a decision within weeks.

Faury was appointed head of the core planemaking business last December after Fabrice Bregier agreed to quit following a power battle with Enders, in a shake-up that also saw the German CEO draw back from plans to seek a third term in 2019.

Pressure to end uncertainty over the CEO job grew with the resignation of sales chief Eric Schulz in August, with the former Rolls-Royce executive’s abrupt departure strengthening calls for an internal successor to Enders..

FAURY SEEN COMBINING ROLES

A person close to Enders denied there had been any leadership vacuum since he announced his intention not to seek a third term and said he had remained involved in the business.

As CEO of the only serious rival to U.S. planemaker Boeing, Faury will continue to tackle industrial problems affecting some jet deliveries while overseeing smaller but increasingly autonomous helicopter and defence units.

People familiar with the matter said he would not be replaced in his current role, though this did not exclude shoring up the operational management as two top industrial executives prepare to retire at the end of this year.

The Airbus planemaking business merged with the parent group last year, but until now had maintained separate figureheads.

Faury will also need to restore morale shattered by a probe into the use of middlemen, now in its third year and which has left management sidelined as board directors pilot the inquiry.

Airbus said its board would begin selecting a new chairman “in due course”, with a view to “maintaining international diversity” at board and management level.

Sources said last month that Faury’s hiring could herald changes in the board as Ranque would step down in 2020.

Airbus usually divides chairman and CEO jobs between French and German nationals, though the ability of Paris and Berlin governments to dish out top jobs for purely political reasons was halted in 2013. Although their power is curtailed and Airbus claims full independence, the two governments each maintain a voice as 11-percent shareholders and major defence buyers.

(Reporting by Tim Hepher; Editing by Keith Weir and Mark Potter)