Daily Record: KLM takeover.

[flyingdutchman]

http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/page.cfm?objectid=12705273&method=full&siteid=89488

AIRLINE SELL OFF
Mar 6 2003


DUTCH airline giant KLM is to be sold off, leaving 30,000 workers facing redundancy.

Both British Airways and Air France are poised to snap up the carrier, which could threaten 600 jobs in the UK.

KLM chief executive Leo van Wijk has told board members that a forthcoming alliance deal will eventually see the end of the KLM brand.

Workers at Heathrow Airport will bear the brunt of any job cuts.

The airline's profits plunged in the wake of September 11. The looming war with Iraq has also hit bookings.

[abracadabra]

some kind of joke?

abracadabra

[Captain104]

Not very hot stuff.

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=83640

Regards

[flyingdutchman]

Thank you both.

An unlikely story.

Strangely, though Otterman in a related thread says he was unaware of it, I happened upon it on KLM's internal news network...

[Otterman]

As usual things move fast in our world. Flyingdutchman is a few days behind. I responded to this last week when the “report” first surfaced. I made contact with our company to see what was up. The report that Flying read in our internal newsletter were a direct response to this enquiry. I received a formal company response via email back on March 7 from our communication department.

Flying you have been around our company long enough to know that you don’t ever get the news first from them. That is what sites like Pprune are about. So look here first.

[Stop Stop Stop]

Amazing Leo van Wijk chose to give an exclusive to some hack from the Daily Record...that top organ for corporate takeover bids!

Considering KLM have EURO 1.5 Billion in the bank and BA haven't got a pot to p*ss in, it makes you wonder whether the takeover might be the other way round?

[A/P Disc]

They might have a lot of cash lying around but if you
keep p*ssing it away at a rate that Leo van Wijk is
doing it won't be in the bank for long. Forgot the
Alitalia soap drama (250 million!) or forgot the
fact that KLM is consistently making losses?:rolleyes:

[Bucking Bronco]

Stop stop stop

BA has cash reserves of £2.2bn (euro 3.3bn?) and made an operating profit of £53m (euro 79.5m) in Q3.

Cheers

BB

[flyingdutchman]

Otterman,

>Flying you have been around our company long enough to know that you don’t ever get the news first from them. That is what sites like Pprune are about. So look here first.<

You are absolutely correct, of course. Silly, silly me ! :O

[Buster the Bear]

I really hope this news thread is a scam. KLM must be mad to rid themselves of Buzz for £3million! So I suppose they could re-incarnate themselves as Basiq-KLM?

[CaptainSquelch]

With that €1.5 billion (€1 500 000 000) in cash the following is just for your info.


KLM shares closed this week at 5.87 €.
The total value of all KLM shares is then €275 million . (€275 000 000)
free floating of the total KLM shares only 45 %.

So KLM could buy it's own free floating shares at the expense of only 8% of its cash ....


Sq

[Mr ugly frog]

Buster.

If, as reported, Buzz were losing $1000000 per week, why were KLM mad to sell?

[A Very Civil Pilot]

Mr Ugly Frog,

buzz is British. KLM are Dutch. Need any other reason to get rid of it?

[seat 0A]

ask around at corus. It won`t be long before that goes sour.

[MerchantVenturer]

Talking of Corus, a month or two ago a group of business people came up with an idea for a major airport on the Corus site near Newport in South Wales.