HS to become CHC?
Further to the recent dicussions about CHC's bid for HS, some sources report that HS is about to roll over and recommend to their shareholders that they accept CHC's bid to buy at NOK 40 per share.
There have even been discussions on how the various parts of each company will be carved up. Seems that Lloyd and Court (South Africa)will become part of CHI (CHC's international division), Vinland Helicopters will just be part of HS (or the other way round) and that the real casualty may be Bond who will become part of BIH.
This will`lead to a duopoly between CHC and OLOG/`Bristow in many parts of the world. There will, no doubt, be many oil companies who will be very nervous about the tendered prices in their next round of contract bids. There may well be some considerable price increases in the pipeline for them as CHC try to reduce what will be a huge debt. As OLOG still have huge debts from their purchase of 50% of Bristow, they also could take advantage of the now severely limited competition in some markets, notably the North Sea.
Where will the poor crews be in all this with not much opportunity to seek their fortunes elsewhere and little competition in pay scales and progression? Whilst there never has been much difference in payscales etc (funny that, isn't it?) there will probably now be even less. So boys and girls, which colour baseball bat would you like?