And Racedo, you think.....
Sober
You had to ask !!!! As you a reasonable poster bereft of the emotional rantings of some on here I will repond accordingly.
Think should just cut it loose and flog the shareholding for €250M + to who ever will buy it.
Start a T/A business up from scratch and with €250M + €100M not paid to Flybe its decent seed capital for a 15-20 plane T/A operation using SNN and a number of other places as hubs.
I believe whomever wins it will be a Pyrhhic victory.
FR will spend too much time and resources intergrating it and take their eye of the ball in their mega profitable core business...................few hostile bids ever deliver what they promise to, management of company taken over generally leave very quickly.
If takeover doesn't happen then EI have to deliver in keeping the share price high which brings its own difficulties............pay more dividends is one way but that will suck cash out of the business for nil return.
Every 1 Cent in dividend costs roughly €5.3 Million, so div of 4 cents announced last week is €21 Million paid out. This is cash that could have been invested within company.
There is the EI potential pension liability which has a potential to suck €25-40 million cash a year from the business for 10 years if Irish courts rule accordingly that way. Its a claimed pension fund liability of €750M as per submissions to court. It won't be a nil cost.
If courts ruled on EI immediate liability and demand single massive shortfall payment (doubtful) of €250 M to cover deficit then EI would have interesting discussions with their bankers. The debt holders and creditors would start to worry about payment which is not a good situation to be in.
Then there would be the trading issue if FR started up a T/A business as while believe EI would realistically expect to hold 50-60% of their existing Pax I think losing 40-50% creates a big revenue and profit gap.