1a sound asleep
I am not confident JB has saved Virgin Australia. He certainly has dug a bigger hole for them to climb out of.
You mentioned a figure of $1B. It appears to me that Virgin Australia is only worth about half its book value if all debts and liabilities are carried forward.
With total assets of $1,586,000,000 and liabilities of $2,300,800,000 the balance sheet is a mess.
With long term debt being 68% of the companies capital and a debt/equity ratio of 256.6% some serious surgery needs to be performed before a serious suitor would be interested.
Whilst it is true Delta purchased the SQ 49% holding in Virgin Atlantic after SQ lost a total of approx. $1B on their foray. Virgin Atlantic is now a shell of its former self having dropped services to Sydney, Tokyo, Vancouver, Mumbai and Cape Town. In addition its UK 'Little Red' domestic airline has closed down.
And yes you are correct; Virgin America is on the chopping block. After a huge airfare sale recently to raise some cash it appears the major partners in the airline (similar to Virgin Australia ) have offered the airline for sale after less than 18 months as a public company. So far Alaska Airlines and Jet Blue have made offers for the airline with an announcement expected as early as next week.
A number of years ago anything to do with Richard Branson was regarded as a 'sideshow'; nothing appears to have changed.