Member Info for Pianista

If enough shareholders indicate to the BOD their intention to vote it down, I suppose they could.

Virgin may resist by saying that the alternative is zilch, but that's not much of a threat when all they offering is 1p.

Exactly, Devonian. The £20m loan does not make this a done deal by any means. If IAG come along, the loan will be repaid.

I wonder whether IAG would have known about the terms of the deal before it was announced. Hopefully not, because if they did know, surely they would have stepped in by now.

I agree that Flybe's financial position probably nosedived over Christmas because of further security demanded by credit card acquirers, but once rescued by whomever, that problem automatically goes away, so should not affect the value of the company.

So Virgin/Stobart have got a bargain - if voted through. They won't get my vote, though.

Mayfield, are you holding out for a counter offer by IAG?

Remember back in November when he built up a stake of about 10m shares for around £1.5m?

There's always someone worse off than you.

It's going to take around 7 or 8 weeks probably to get shareholder approval. A lot can happen in that time.

They can't just suspend trading in the shares without good reason.

...have already done their DD, so should be able to respond to this derisory offer very quickly, no doubt.

What possible reason would there be for it to get suspended?

Market expecting increased offer from IAG?

Is the market expecting a counteroffer from IAG, I wonder?

..which it is, you'd expect IAG gatecrash. Where are you Willie?

...there's no point panic-selling.

I don't think this - an offer of 10p - is the end. Not even the beginning of the end. Maybe the end of the beginning.

Seriously, it's curious that the Sky article mentions Flybe's "valuable" LHR slots, whilst at the same time indicating that the offer will be a measly £20m.

However, the Sky piece also talks about the "immediate" need for capital, which suggests that the asset sale program has stalled.

If it's an agreed bid, I'd expect an RNS from Flybe, not Virgin/Stobart. If the RNS is only from Virgin/Stobart, I'm sure it will be rejected by the BOD &/or the shareholders as a derisory try-on by Sir Tightwad Branson, and a bidding war will start.

Let's see what tomorrow brings in terms of official announcments.

I don’t believe the 1 trade means anything except it was part of a larger trade that was broken up, so no hidden messages.

But I agree with DDM that an announcement could well be very close, despite Brexit uncertainty and the consequent weak exchange rate - which ironically is because of doommongers like Branson talking the country down all the time, something they'll no longer need to do if/when Brexit happens.

In any case, the acquirer can manage the forex risk by (further) hedging. At least any forex cost in respect of fuel – the biggest $ expense by far for the company - is outweighed by the big drop in poo.

Woodstock - suggest an opening offer from you of 50p. That should put the sh*ts up Sir Richard.

I agree with Westminster.

As someone with plenty of skin in the game I'd love to believe that the transfer of engineers is significant.

However, as someone said the annual wage bill will be c£3m, which is relatively insignificant compared to annual maintenance costs of c£70m.

Furthermore, there shouldn't be any net cost to Flybe, because Flybe will no longer have to buy in their services.

Indeed, these engineers may be able to make a positive contribution to the MRO profit centre.

In any event, they may be with Flybe for a very short time if the whole unit is sold off as part of the cash raising exercise.

DDM - no one knows for sure, but I suspect bids at around 30p were made a long tine ago and laughed out of court by the BOD.

The current SP level is a hangover from when the company was in danger of going bust, when all valuation methods clearly go out of the window. However, decent Q3 results and perhaps one or two more asset sales should see it back to upper 20s.

As for Brexit, I somehow doubt whether the position will be any clearer after the impending vote in Parliament. But whatever happens, there's no reason for planes to stop flying. The main problem for Flybe is the effect of Brexit on the exchange rate, which won't recover until certain influential people stop talking the country down all the time!

However, if there is only one bidder left in the race, they may well try to use Brexit as an excuse to delay or drive a harder bargain. This is less likely if there are still several bidders in the frame, because Brexit or no Brexit there'll never be a better opportunity to acquire Flybe than now.

Just an RNS

Never been a Q3 trading statement?? What about the one on 31.1.18?

Basically Flybe is taking servicing that was done by MAEL in-house.

I would have thought this would save costs ultimately, which is another positive.

However, I don't see that it will have any bearing on whether Flybe will be taken over or remain independent.

Flybe have been talking to potential bidders for at least a couple of months (they had already started talking even before the sale process was announced on 14/11/18). They also said that “further announcements regarding timings for the formal sale process will be made as appropriate”.

Given the uncertain outlook and consequent SP collapse in October, I think it’s fast becoming “appropriate” to give a first update – I’m sure plenty has happened, including a number of (rejected) bids. Perhaps they want to hold off until the Q3 results announcement at the end of January.