Sept 19 (Reuters) - British Airways owner IAG is
not planning to raise billions of euros from shareholders to get
the company through the extended COVID-19 crisis, its chief
executive Luis Gallego told The Sunday Times.
"We do not see the necessity to do a rights issue and are
not considering it," Gallego told the newspaper https://bit.ly/3Cphn3L
adding that the company was talking through "different options"
with banks.
The comments come after media speculation about the
company's plans to shore up its finances.
In May, IAG announced plans to raise 825 million euros ($967
million) from a convertible bond to bolster its balance sheet.
Last year, the group launched a 2.75 billion euros ($3.22
billion) capital raising.
Gallego noted that the group had high debts but also had
strong liquidity of 10.2 billion euros, Times reported.
"We have revolving credit facilities, we are analysing other
ways of financing the group so we have alternatives before we
another rights issue," he told the newspaper adding
that repaying debts will be group's priority.
Earlier this month, British airline easyJet Plc
opted to raise $1.7 billion from shareholders to recover from
the pandemic and declined a takeover approach from Wizz Air.
Asked if he had discussed a merger with executives at
easyJet, Gallego said: "We talk to all airlines that can be
interesting to us," according to the newspaper.
($1 = 0.8529 euros)
(Reporting by Aishwarya Nair in Bengaluru; Editing by Toby
Chopra)