RE: air new zealand to get a32

Ja,

I know you’re the authority down under, but I just got out the July 2002 issue of Airways and read the article on AirNewZealand again. Here’s the deal. October 4, 2001, the NZ gov’t invested NZ$885 million in return for 82% of the recapitalized shares of ANZ. Brierly Investments and Singapore Airlines saw their 30% and 25% interests reduced to 5.3 and 4.2%, respectively. That’s 91.5% of the airline right there. It doesn’t say who owns the remaining 8.5%. Regardless of who it is, I wouldn’t exactly call that a majority. It further goes to make statements such as, “What should we do about QANTAS, which is knocking at our door again?” Also, “There seem to be three broad options for AirNewZealand. Continue to exist in its present form as an independent (albeit government-owned) airline; be taken over by another airline, such as QANTAS; or dramatically reduce its size and cost structure, etc.” Furthermore, “QANTAS is salivating at the prospect of accomplishing its long-held goal of taking over its Trans-Tasman rival…such an acquisition would give QF dominance on trans-Tasman and international flights…” “We interviewed Andrew Miller, senior vice-president-strategy and planning, in Auckland and asked him about the QANTAS takeover proposal. ‘We serve a lot of similar markets. QANTAS has made it very clear they’d like to take a stake in Air New Zealand….” So there you have it JA. Again, I don’t know what your newspaper that’s sitting in the rubbish somewhere, circa September 2001 says. This article is fairly recent, July 2002. Looks to me as if QF is still trying to take a stake in them, but hasn’t done so yet. Unless of course they have done so after this article was published. According to you, they’ve had a majority stake for a long time now.

GD1