Lew And Fox What Is Their Game? (Business Sunday)
Was watching Business Sunday this morning up here on Channel 9, interesting comments on Lew and Fox. Sorry it took so long to post, had to find the Business Sunday web site and then work out how the hell to put it here.. . . .Is this fairly accurate? Or does this bloke have an axe to grind?
February 17, 2002 . . . . . .LEW & FOX WHAT IS THEIR GAME? . . . .17 February 2002 . . . .Terry McCrann . . . . . . . . . .Good morning,
At the start of what should be the third Week of the wonderful new Ansett of Solomon Lew and Lindsay Fox. Yet it was only on Friday that agreement in-principle was reached to get the all-important Sydney terminal. To stress not the actual purchase of its lease just an agreement in principal. And that came less than a week after a memorandum of understanding with Airbus. Again not a real deal to buy the planes just a piece of paper. So well after the actual date they were going to buy Ansett they’ve only just started to get around to getting two rather important assets the planes to fly the passengers and the main terminal to land them at.
And they still don’t have either or the airline itself. instead we still have two accountants named Mark, playing with planes and losing at least a million dollars a day. even if Lew and Fox weren’t talking to Virgin Blue you’d have to wonder just exactly what their game was.
The fact remains that it makes no sense to buy Ansett unless you intend to merge it with Virgin. But if you do It makes no sense to buy Ansett. especially an Ansett that is now carrying barely 4000 passengers a day at just one hundred bucks each even cheaper than the supposedly ultra-cheap Virgin. The difference is Virgin intends to carry them cheap and makes a profit. you’d do better to let it fall over completely you’d still get its terminals but without having to pick up the tab for the employee entitlements.
I wonder if our studio guest today the CBA’s David Murray thinks the new Ansett would be a good credit risk if it was going to go head-to- head with Virgin. Indeed what he thinks of credit risk much more broadly if interest rates do start to rise this year.
I'm Terry McCrann