Virgin Blue In Line For 520M Sterling Float, And 400M Order With Boeing.
Reuters
Virgin Blue in-line for 520 mln stg float-report
Saturday November 9, 8:33 pm ET
LONDON, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Travel and retail mogul Richard Branson has hired Goldman Sachs investment bank to float Australian airline Virgin Blue, which he half owns, in the first half of 2003, The Sunday Times reported.
He will likely announce the float -- with a value of up to 520 million pounds ($US828 million) -- in the next few weeks, the paper said.
Branson, who owns larger Virgin Atlantic airline along with Singapore Airlines Ltd., is expected to announce the deal when his company unveils a 400 million pound order from U.S-based jet maker Boeing Co, it reported.
The business tycoon is expected to keep a majority stake in the airline, but could make about 60 million pounds in an earn-out pact with Patrick Corp, an Australian transport company that purchased a half-share in the airline earlier in the year.
On November 6, Branson signed a deal to rent terminal space at Sydney airport, Australia's largest, for Virgin Blue, ending months of wrangling.
He had been campaigning for months to get Sydney Airport to stick to a handshake deal on terminal space for the airline.
The cut-price carrier had been operating out of an overcrowded, temporary building with no covered gateways that sits hundreds of metres from the main Sydney airport terminal buildings.