RE: Tomorrow23 Jan 2019 15:39
At last I’ve found information from 4 days ago:
Flybe's biggest shareholder has launched a stunning attack on its directors, accusing them of breaching their duties to investors and threatening a legal challenge to the cut-price takeover of one of Britain's best-known airlines.
Sky News has learnt that Hosking Partners, a prominent London-based asset manager which holds a stake of close to 19% in Flybe, has instructed lawyers to explore its options in relation to the company's proposed sale to a consortium? led by Virgin Atlantic Airways .
These options could include attempting to obtain an injunction prohibiting the deal from being completed, Hosking Partners is understood to have warned Flybe's bosses this week.
The initial 1p-a-share deal, announced eight days ago, came at a huge discount to the airline's prevailing share price and underscored its industry's profound financial challenges.
In a letter to the directors of Flybe, details of which have been relayed to Sky News, Hosking Partners is understood to have expressed concern that they had allowed a false market in the company's shares to develop by failing to update the City on its financial position in a timely fashion.
?The fund manager, a long-standing shareholder in Flybe, is understood to have copied its ?letter to City watchdogs including the Takeover Panel, which polices mergers and ?acquisitions activity, and the Financial Conduct Authority.
Hosking Partners is said to have raised doubts as to whether the £2.2m offer reflected the intrinsic value of Flybe, and alleged that the handling of its proposed sale had blocked a rival offer from emerging at a higher price.
Flybe's fate took a further twist this week when it said that its sale to Connect Airways - a consortium comprising Virgin Atlantic, Stobart Group and Cyrus Capital Partners,? an investment fund with links to the other two parties - would be restructured.
?Instead of simply comprising a conventional offer for the shares, Flybe's trading assets would be sold next month to Connect Airways for £2.8m, leaving the holding company as? a shell for which ?the consortium would continue to pay a nominal sum.
Flybe said this change had been necessitated by its urgent need for liquidity - a claim challenged by Hosking Partners because of the company's cash balance and ability to raise funds from the sale of assets such as its take-off and landing slots at London Gatwick Airport.
In a statement to the market on Tuesday, Flybe said it had had no alternative but to agree to the revisions because unspecified conditions attached to a bridging loan had not been met.
Hosking and other shareholders are said to be furious about the restructuring of the takeover because Flybe's recent switch from a premium to a standard listing on the London market meant investor approval was now only required for the holding company bid, not the sale of the airline's assets.
The fund manager is understood to have told F
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