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Nicely summed up in a single word.

My prediction is that there'll be an offer made between sometime today and Christmas.

I could make it happen straightaway just by selling all my Flybe shares.

Still no RNS re "the purchaser". It's either late or perhaps there was more than one (beneficial) purchaser, each of them below 3%.

This surreptitious lobbying by Virgin via the Economist tells me that IAG are closing in fast.

I wouldn't like to be out of this one over the weekend.

Haven't they heard that this is not a "rescue mission", but a case of two heavyweights slugging it out over lucrative slots?

Most people realise this is just another pointless misleading post from you.

The message is: this WILL be taken over by IAG or Virgin.

The aborted Stobart bid in March may provide clues as to the likely timescale.

Within a month of the announcement that Stobart were interested in Flybe, they had already made several offers to the BOD of Flybe, which I don't think were made public, and which were all rejected.

This time, the potential bidders are being given "certain information about the business" (there was nothing in the public announcements to suggest that Stobart were similarly given such information in March). However, all of the parties are no doubt already quite familiar with each other's operations, not forgetting the senior management merry-go-round in the aviation industry.

The current bidders are also having to race against each other, even though they are not up against any legal deadline for making an offer. So despite the complexities for them in assessing the value of Flybe to them, I wouldn't mind betting that the BOD of Flybe have already received offer(s), which they are still mulling over or have rejected.

To be a fly on the wall of the Flybe boardroom...

Only if you're a day trader who bought at 22p earlier on.

...next Tue, 4 Dec, together with a positive update on the turnaround hopefully.

I'm also interested in knowing the identity of the buyer, because in general large buys are more significant than large sells.

Buys almost invariably show confidence in a company, sells aren't necessarily done because of a lack of confidence: they are more often than not done for other reasons, ie financial, personal, tax...or just window dressing in the case of IIs.

Also, the sale and purchase could be connected transactions, like when you do a bed and ISA transaction. The II and connected persons may have wanted to maintain their overall holding, but have them held outside the II. As the SP did not appear to be disturbed, that would be my guess, but let's see...

So it was a sale by an II.

At least it wasn’t the FD, who stepped down last year (apparently because the HQ was moving to Birmingham, and he wanted to stay in Devon).

He left holding 2m odd shares, which he still appears to hold (at any rate, he still held them as at 18/9/18 per the TRAK website).

So he appears to have confidence - well-founded confidence? - in the company’s prospects, and was no doubt as surprised as the rest of us when the SP tanked.

Certainly if he had no confidence, in particular if there was any truth in the allegations of accounting shenanigans - which he of all people would know about - he’d have tried to reduce his holdings pdq.

Of course, that fact he didn’t do that could be for all sorts of financial or personal reasons, including tax. However, if he feared that the SP would collapse, that would surely trump everything else, especially given the size of the holding (worth around £2m earlier this year).

So I would say it’s a good sign that he hasn’t sold.

At the very least, we can take comfort that our judgement as LTHs is no worse than his!

Thanks Mayfield, great answer as always.

My feeling is, taking into account what you say, that a deal of some kind will be done, but there'll be some tricky calculations for the bidders, which could mean having to wait a bit longer for any offer to be announced.

But who's paid the employees' salaries during all those years since flotation?

The shareholders who stumped up £600m!

So the employees can't complain: they've done very nicely from shareholder money.

I agree TT, subject for example to the rules on slots.

The reason for my question is that if what I said is correct, it makes a bid more likely.

My overall impression, with my limited knowledge of the aviation industry, is that different suitors are interested in different parts of Flybe, especially the slots.

In an ideal world, therefore, Flybe would be broken up, and different parts parcelled out to different players.

Could that be achieved by one player buying the whole shebang, then parcelling out bits, eg the slots, at a later stage?

If so, who would then be the most logical or likely buyer? Stobart?

Maybe those with more knowledge of the aviation industry, eg Mayfield, could comment?

Eddie: "they" is HSBC.

Did check out Mayfield's post re HSBC analyst, who today is saying:

"We assume a break-up of the business looks more likely than a sale to an individual buyer".

Weird turn of phrase! Does it mean "We don't think there'll be a bid?", or "We're not allowing for any bid premium in our valuation?" HSBC seem to be hiding behind weasel words, so they can jump in either direction.

In other words, they haven't a clue.

Yeah, it's not as manic, but I need to get tickling, ivories that is....

GreenWolf - thanks for clarifying. "He" was someone else, not Keith Everitt. So false alarm.

I haven't had a chance to look at the earlier post from Mayfield - this BB is too cluttered!!

I would assume, if only from his superior general knowledge of the company and the personalities involved, that he's in a better position to assess the likelihood of a Virgin bid than most of us here.

That is, if it is true that he worked for Delta.