https://www.smh.com.au/business/comp...13-p5529b.html
The Richard Branson-linked investment firm Cyrus Capital believes Virgin Australia could be profitable within three years after relaunching under its ownership as a smaller, simpler, mid-market airline operating a domestic and international network.
In the firm's first public comments about its interest in Virgin, Cyrus senior adviser Jonathan Peachey said the business had become "too complex" and "too corporate" as it morphed from the budget upstart Virgin Blue into a full-service airline competing head-to-head with Qantas.
Cyrus has a history of investing in airlines alongside Mr Branson's Virgin Group, which owned 10 per cent of Virgin Australia when it collapsed. It launched Virgin America together in 2005 and in February 2019 bought the British regional airline Flybe, which has since gone into administration.
Mr Peachey said Cyrus would re-start Virgin as a "hybrid" airline, with a competitively priced business class product alongside affordable leisure travel fares.
"The business... should sit below that very top tier of where Qantas plays so strongly in, and above and maybe overlapping slightly where Jetstar sits," he said.
"We don’t intended to take the business right the way down to the ultra-low cost space - we don’t think the market needs that with Jetstar’s presence."
Bain has said it would position Virgin somewhere between a low-cost and full-service airline, and also wants to work with Mr Branson to maintain the Virgin brand.
...
Mr Peachey said Cyrus was taking a "long-term view" and noted it remained a shareholder in Virgin America for 12 years, including after its NASDAQ listing, until its bought outright by Alaska Airlines.
With Cyrus still working on its final bid – due for submission to administrators Deloitte on June 22 – Mr Peachey said he could not comment on whether it would offer anything to Virgin's unsecured bondholders, who are owed $2 billion and growing anxious they will walk away with nothing.
Cyrus says it has around $US4 billion ($5.8 billion) of assets under management and a client base mostly made up of from university endowments, hospitals and charitable foundations.