Swedish Airline Flyme buy's 15% of UK Airline Astraeus

Swedish Airline FlyMe Has Bought 51% of UK Airline Astraeus

STOCKHOLM (Dow Jones)–Swedish budget airline FlyMe Europe AB Friday said it has signed a contract to buy 51% of shares in the British airline Astraeus Ltd. for GBP6 million.

The remaining 49% shares are held by the previous majority owners Aberdeen Asset Management PLC (ADN.LN) and the carrier’s management.

Astraeus was founded in 2002 and has its main base at Gatwick with 800,000 passengers a year and around SEK1.2 billion in revenue. The company flies both package holidays and scheduled traffic. The scheduled traffic focuses mainly on West Africa and the former Soviet Union from Gatwick. It has 391 staff, whereof 318 are aircraft personnel. The airline has four Boeing 757-200, four 737-300 as well as two 737-700.

Through the acquisition, FlyMe’s aircraft fleet will increase to 15 from five.

“There are a lot of synergy effects between FlyMe and Astraeus. The acquisition gives us more optimal use of the shared fleet thanks to matching season variations,” said Finn Thaulow, new chief executive of FlyMe. “There are also good opportunities for increased efficiency and profitability for both FlyMe and Astraeus since we bring out the strengths in both companies.” ]

Thaulow was named CEO on Thursday, when the company also announced that it had reduced a proposed preferential issue to SEK194 million, from a previously proposed SEK1.3 billion as a planned project hadn’t yet been completed.

In an interview with Dow Jones Newswires, the company’s chairman Bjoern Olegaard said that the acquisition of Astraeus was funded by a share issue the company completed earlier this year.

Thaulow told Dow Jones Newswires that the acquisition was the “extra step” in FlyMe’s planned expansion and that once the carrier has all the synergies in place it will look at further expansion opportunities.

1 September 2006
Dow Jones International News