Administrator dismisses Hazelton's potential buyers
 

ABC News Net:

Posted: Tue, 16 Apr 2002 19:03 AEST

Administrator dismisses Hazelton's potential buyers

Hazelton Airlines' administrator says neither of the two expressions of interest in the former Ansett subsidiary are financially secure in their present form.

The Inland Marketing Corporation and a syndicate of former Ansett staff have been named as the two potential buyers.

But the sale of both Kendell and Hazelton airlines has been delayed because the administrators are not satisfied with the bids.

Hazelton administrator Michael Humphris says funding must be secure.

"I can certainly confirm that both parties have expressed interest but the current status of their bids, regardless of what they may say about their status of their bids, is that they are unfunded and we're not able to move forward with any party with funding conditional to finance in respect to their expression of interest," he said.

The administrators have said on numerous occassions that there are 5 bidders for KD, anyone have any news on what's happened to the other 3?

SR - I trust you are aware that this is a ZL post and that ZL is under a separate administrator to KD. The only similarity is that some of the bidders have thrown their hat in the ring for both airlines.

From what KD's administrator says, KD still has five bidders in various forms, inclusive of those interested in ZL as well (2 of)

The makeup of the mystical 5 bidders has changed somewhat over the course of the administration with bid mergers, new entrants and dropouts.

Andersen's do not want to get burnt again as with Ansett and Aeropelican and they will make sure that whoever they announce as preferred bidder can go on with the job.

Lets hope it is soon.

guru

KD Guru,

How did the administrators get burned over the sale of Aeropelican? I am not in the loop, as I am out of town.

Andersen's announced a preferred bidder for Aero and up until the 11th hour, things were fine - until the bidder couldnt come up with the cash. Andersen's had to move quickly to resurrect what was a bad scene. Has ended well with Aero going independent and I understand getting hosted in QF.

guru

The rumblings as at yesterday in financial circles is that no bidders for either Kendal or Hazos will "get up" and the probable scenario is that both operators may ultimately be liquidated. Potential bidders seem to be having real problems securing capital.

Sad indeed!

Methinks you may well be right, Torres. Taxied in at Wagga the other day and had to hunt round some to park - many KD aircraft sitting around forlornly. Brings it home to you! Sad indeed.

KD guru,

This months Aus Aviation says that Aeroduck was sold to IAP/Horizon Airlines. No mention of trouble in the article. Did this sale fall over?

The failed bid to buy AeroDuck was the Pacific Ground Handling Services bid, who were getting a nice backhander from Lyndsay to ensure they had the top bid and keep PO aligned with Ansett II.
But when Curly and Moe pulled out so did this mob.
The final bid was completed by IAP/Horizon who are shifting the entire operation in to QF system.
Their first week in control was the best week the Duck has seen since the grounding, evidence that the "Operational" management Byron slipped in there can't cut it in the world of commerce.

Well this is my 2 cents:

Bidders around are:

1/ Virgin Blue, may need regional feeder. Now that Sir Richard has been here for a few days would have expected an announcement but none has come. Virgin has history of starting its own ops from the ground up so don't hold breath.
2/ "Group of Sydney Business Men" as seen on WIN TV in Port McQ last week. Propose bases at Sydney, Orange and Wagga.
3/ "Group of Melboune Business Men" Presumably AnStaff.
4/ The regional council group. About 30 councils funded. Some talk that they don't have finance.

ALL groups have proposed a combined Kendall/Hazelton model.

Hazelton Load factors said to be good; around 60%. Kedalls bad, around half that.

Both carriers are now spending big on changing reservations host to Sabre. Can't see the administrator spending this money if a liquidation is immenant.

I say good on them for holding off. What good would it be to offload to a "Group" if thay don't have the finance - only to fold a few months down the line.

Think I need a Bex and a good lie down to go with this Cab Sav!

I know that the Kendell load factors are considerably higher than 30% and if wasn't for a couple of 'highly' competitive routes, Kendell would be travelling quite well.

If Hazelton are achieving 60% load factors, not sure why they've lost considerably more $$ than Kendell under administration.

I think KD are doing well to survive, given that they were more closely aligned to Ansett in many areas. The props used to run around 20% on-carriage on to Ansett and this disappeared overnight. They are still flying around with the tarnished Ansett tail, expecting customers to book via the Ansett call centre due to not having their own reservations centre and they also have to direct customers via the Ansett Web-site due lack of booking engine on the KD site. I am sure that there are plenty of punters out there that think that the Ansett Call Centre and Ansett Website finished weeks ago, despite the best attempts to advertise.

On top of all this the Ansett Merlin is about to get switched and all the staff on the ground level madly trying to manage the transition, working long hours, getting no weekends (or any annual leave) and they are doing this with no clear direction about the airlines future.

Problem is that the issues cannot be fixed until the business finds a new owner, coz Andersens don't know how to run an airline and I think they have enough problems of their own!!

Flat Chat..