Here you go Dick:
Virgin Australia sells stake to China's HNA Aviation Group
Billionaire Chen?s HNA to Acquire Stake in Virgin Australia - Bloomberg
But in response to your question
Why can't we own and operate successful aviation businesses that can win these contracts? Are we that mediocre ?
No we are not! When it comes to innovation and service delivery there are Aussie aviation companies that are as good as any in the world. However smaller Australian aviation businesses have a very hard time raising capital to expand and grow, because banks and investors see aviation in this country as high risk.
In respect to government contracts such as AMSA, the bureaucrats who decide these contracts equate size to capability, therefore putting Aussie suppliers at a huge disadvantage. This was the case with AMSA where there were more than one fully conforming & cheaper Australian owned options, and of those Aussie options at least one offered substantially more capability. However Canberra in its wisdom still chose to award the contract to a
non-conforming option offered by a "large" corporation that did not meet the initial tender prerequisites (AMSA subsequently quietly changed the tender conditions to allow Cobham's bid to comply).... if you are interested I suggest you follow-up with Senator Michaelia Cash who has been on the trail of this one, and maybe Terry Flynn at Pearl.