Buying bmi
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Buying bmi
Anyone out there with news/more rumours on the future of bmi? If an airline..say..BA/Virgin/Lufty buys SMB's 51% share, will the Pilots seniority count or will they be starting at the bottom?! Interesting thought.
Join Date: Jul 2005
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It's all announced already that Lufty will buy the shares next year.
Nobody has announced yet that BMI will be merged into something different, though. Look at Swiss and you know what I mean.
Nobody has announced yet that BMI will be merged into something different, though. Look at Swiss and you know what I mean.
Paxing All Over The World
The thread in Airlines, Airports & Routes has eight pages of the full discussion.
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=303554
http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=303554
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To summarise - BMI current ownership is Bishop 50.1%, Luf 29.9%, SAS 20%. Bishop has a put option on his shares to Lufi at a pre-agreed price (circa €400m) valid till 6/09, and Lufi has a call option on his shares at the same price through to the same date. Start dates for these options differ, and Bishop suggested recently that there are still contractual terms that are not in the public domain. SAS's 20% is for sale - they say that selling later (in 2009) will realise more value. Lufi has recently said that it will use its call option, hence the likely outcome is that Lufi will own 80% minimum of BMI by 6/09. It has not indicated at all how it might play that ownership, but has ridiculed Air France's LHR/LAX flights, so seems unlikely to want to commence major Atlantic operations. Both BA and Virgin talk of interest, but they'll have to pay a significant premium above Lufi's in-price of circa €800m for 100% in order to catch Lufi's interest in selling. Some argue that the LHR slots (at £20-30m a pair on recent trades) make BMI worth much more, but BA may have a competition authority problem (its 41% plus BMI's 11% = 52%; next guy has less than 5%), and Virgin may not have the money. I'd bet that BMI pilots will be some part of the Lufi system in a year's time.
