BA parent ‘seen as frontrunner for BMI’
02.11.11
Lufthansa is to enter exclusive talks to sell its loss-making UK subsidiary BMI by the end of the month, with BA parent IAG the front-runner, Reuters ‘sources’ said today. A 'source close to the sales process' told Reuters: ‘The price won't be substantial. It is mainly about cleaning Lufthansa's balance sheet and getting rid of the debt.'
While Lufthansa would like to sell BMI as a whole, another source told Reuters the most likely outcome would be Lufthansa selling BMI's coveted slots at Heathrow, Europe's largest airport, to IAG. IAG would then pass on some of those slots to Virgin to relieve competition concerns.
The person said: ‘Lufthansa will likely sell BMI's slots for about £300 million pounds max and its stake in (air traffic manager) NATS and fetch about £400 million pounds in total, so just enough to recover from the losses accumulated since the BMI acquisition.'
With the Heathrow slots sold, smaller airlines such as Flybe or Eastern could then look to pick up BMI Regional. A Scottish group are also reported to be interested in the Aberdeen based unit. It is unclear from the article what would happen to the main BMI airline and its budget subsidiary bmibaby.
To book heathrow airport hotels or heathrow airport parking at the lowest price, click on these links to two great heathrow airport car parking and heathrow airport hotel price comparison page.
