Friday, December 15, 2006

Can't ingore $11billion

Have been trying to ignore the actual deal around the $11billion buy-out of Qantas as I wanted to focus my thoughts/rant on the Australian Government's constant screwing up of competition on the Pacific Route.

The story behind the deal is a simple/traditional PE deal - large US group (Texas Pacific Group) joins forces with with the Australian Millionaires Factory (Macquarie) and another Australian group Allco to de-list the Red Rat. I would normally say that owning an airline is a dangerous aim to have. The airline business is subject to constant out of your control shocks (SARS, War, Terrorism, etc), huge capital outlays for airlines and the number one cost element (gas) is not only variable but wildly so. However the Texas Pacific Group are good at owning airlines - they are credited with the turn around of Continental Airlines. Oh - and they now own Sabre. We always used to joke at Galileo that one way to protect segment fee margins was to own and airline...

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

has everybody forgotten or is it just me whom cant work out where the $$ are going to come from to pay the interest bills ?