Probe into Air NZ assets
By FLEUR ANDERSON
17sep01
ANSETT'S administrator will join the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in the hunt for the collapsed airline's assets, claimed to have been stripped by owner Air New Zealand.
PricewaterhouseCoopers partner Peter Hedge, who was appointed administrator to the airline last week, said he would examine Ansett's business records to discover whether Air New Zealand had stripped its assets in the weeks before the collapse.
"It would be totally unacceptable if someone had their hand in the cookie jar at that last minute," Mr Hedge told Channel Nine's Business Sunday yesterday.
"If anyone has inappropriately taken assets of our company, they will be made to return them."
The alleged stripping of assets includes the sale of four Airbus A320 Ansett planes to Singapore Airlines, an A320 simulator, the relocation of a Brisbane maintenance centre to New Zealand, Ansett engines being replaced with old NZ engines and Air NZ refuelling on Ansett's account.
ASIC has already begun a formal investigation into Ansett's collapse and has asked the NZ Securities Commission for co-operation.
It will focus on whether Air NZ directors breached the Corporations Act by allowing Ansett to trade while insolvent.
The possible recovery of some assets from Air NZ would be good news for Ansett, which desperately needs a buyer.
"The cupboard was bare when we got there," Mr Hedge said.
"And that's what has put us in such a difficult position in our attempts to keep the business alive so that we can find buyers for them as going concerns."
A reduced Ansett could be flying as early as tomorrow, depending on the outcome of negotiations after administrators were "inundated with calls" from potential buyers.
Mr Hedge said Air NZ directors should not be able to walk away from their responsibilities.
"We're doing everything we can to ensure that every source and every pressure point we can apply to pull funds back into Ansett to keep it alive is being made," he said.
A cloud also hangs over the future of Air NZ, which last week revealed a $230 million operating loss for the year, before a $NZ1.3 billion writedown for its Ansett investment. And its $NZ850 million rescue package – provided by Air NZ's major shareholders Singapore Airlines and Brierley Investments – now could be in danger of being reclaimed by Ansett's administrators.
Qantas chief Geoff Dixon yesterday said the airline would rethink its $9 billion fleet renewal plan because it could buy some of Ansett's newer aircraft.
Qantas, the main beneficiary of the Ansett collapse, has snared 93 per cent of the Australian market. Australian Competition and Consumer Commission chairman Professor Allan Fels said yesterday Australia needed to beef up its competition laws to ensure new entrants could enter the market against the quasi-monopoly player.
"We favour some strengthening of the Trade Practices Act in this situation – particularly the laws about the misuse of market power," he said.
The ACCC was also in favour of allowing international carriers to pick up passengers on domestic routes, he said.