{"id":7953,"date":"2020-04-07T05:32:41","date_gmt":"2020-04-07T10:32:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=7953"},"modified":"2020-04-07T05:32:41","modified_gmt":"2020-04-07T10:32:41","slug":"gsv-bids-2-5-billion-for-malaysia-airlines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=7953","title":{"rendered":"GSV Bids $2.5 Billion for Malaysia Airlines"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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FILE PHOTO: A Malaysia Airlines plane is seen at Kingsford Smith International Airport in Sydney<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) – Privately held Golden Skies Ventures (GSV) has made a $2.5 billion offer to fully take over the holding company of ailing state carrier Malaysia Airlines, with financing from a European bank, its executives told Reuters on Monday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GSV, which was set up by former Malaysia Airlines officials and professionals with aviation experience,\u00a0made the proposal a month ago, as airlines around the world were hammered by travel restrictions following the coronavirus pandemic.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We have secured in excess of $2.5 billion from the bank. We will take about three to four months to get the long-term financing,” Chief Executive Shahril Lamin told Reuters in a phone interview.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GSV said it also has a commitment from a Japanese private equity firm to inject immediate funds into the aviation group through an equity deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It declined to name the firms involved, adding it was in talks with other foreign banks and private equity firms for further funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GSV has submitted its proposal to Morgan Stanley which has been hired by the aviation group\u2019s sole owner, sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Bhd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sources have previously said Japan Airlines Co Ltd, domestic carriers AirAsia Group Bhd and Malindo Air have shown interest in Malaysia Airlines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GSV said it would assume most of the airline’s debt that is being held by the government in outstanding Islamic bonds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a0Khazanah and Morgan Stanley did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GOLDEN SHARE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The proposal includes keeping the government\u2019s so-called golden share which allows it majority voting rights and maintains Malaysia Airlines’ flag carrier status.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

GSV expects it will have ample liquidity to help the airline operate comfortably for up to 18 months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It intends to reinstate Malaysia Airlines as a premium long-haul airline by expanding its flight network and maximising utilisation of its 81-plane fleet. It also plans to keep other business units such as the budget airline, cargo freighter and maintenance repair and overhaul unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It’s still a viable venture, it has inherent strengths. We are saying we won\u2019t lay off the 13,000 frontline employees and we are not going to asset-strip the airline,\u201d Deputy Chief Executive Ravindran Devagunam said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The firm aims to achieve positive earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation within three years of taking over, and targets 15 billion ringgit ($3.5 billion) in revenue in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Plans for a listing or possible listing of its units are on the cards in three to five years, they said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ravindran said the firm is banking on pent-up travel demand when the coronavirus is contained. \u201cRegardless of how long (the virus) will take this year, we are looking at an uptick in the business from summer 2021.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

($1 = 4.3450 ringgit)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Reporting by Liz Lee; Editing by David Holmes and Edwina Gibbs)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Privately held Golden Skies Ventures (GSV) has made a $2.5 billion offer to fully take over the holding company of ailing state carrier Malaysia Airlines, with financing from a <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10174,797,7890,89,5637,4552,8222,10701,10700,5992,2203,4957,5676,8590,8651,10169,10617,10176,10195,10171,868,10182,1103],"tags":[11264,539,829,420,118,10519,160,887,8082,1293,1925,1700,1216,655,10030,11274,2283,11086,11275,2553,1180,1907,3875,4241,2916,3030,1269,2152,1483,660,203,6373,2052,7960,5752,11263,11266,2420,7799,2870,808,3229,11269,5463,11267,5961,11273,2419,5464,2510,4072,481,2017,11271,2519,11270,1936,412,5600,2426,7263,4272,10938,503,594,1022,6677,11265,4847,3544,7597,1699,1288,2613,11268,2547,2604,4205,3257,1634,2273,3131,1691,1658,1916,1522,11272,873,8759,5163],"class_list":["post-7953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-airline","category-airline-news","category-asia-news","category-aviation-news","category-business-news","category-cargo-news","category-consumer-news","category-coronavirus","category-covid-19","category-economic-news","category-finance-news","category-global-politics","category-international-news","category-japan-news","category-joint-venture-news","category-news","category-pacifica","category-stock-news-2","category-transport","category-transportation","category-transportation-news","category-travel","category-travel-news","tag-ailing","tag-air","tag-airasia","tag-airline","tag-airlines","tag-ample","tag-aviation","tag-bank","tag-bids","tag-cargo","tag-carrier","tag-carriers","tag-chief","tag-company","tag-coronavirus","tag-david-holmes","tag-domestic","tag-editing","tag-edwina-gibbs","tag-equity","tag-european","tag-executive","tag-executives","tag-expanding","tag-experience","tag-financing","tag-firm","tag-flag","tag-fleet","tag-flight","tag-freighter","tag-fully","tag-fund","tag-funded","tag-golden","tag-gsv","tag-hammered","tag-haul","tag-held","tag-holding","tag-japan","tag-japanese","tag-khazanah","tag-kuala","tag-lamin","tag-liquidity","tag-liz-lee","tag-long","tag-lumpur","tag-maintenance","tag-majority","tag-malaysia","tag-malindo","tag-maximising","tag-morgan","tag-nasional","tag-network","tag-news","tag-offer","tag-officials","tag-over","tag-overhaul","tag-pandemic","tag-plane","tag-premium","tag-private","tag-privately","tag-professionals","tag-proposal","tag-repair","tag-reporting","tag-restrictions","tag-reuters","tag-rights","tag-shahril","tag-share","tag-skies","tag-sovereign","tag-stanley","tag-state","tag-status","tag-take","tag-transport","tag-transportation","tag-travel","tag-unit","tag-utilisation","tag-ventures","tag-voting","tag-wealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7953"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7956,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7953\/revisions\/7956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}