euroflyer wrote:tolipanebas wrote:
Has SN indeed forked out some £28m or €32m to gain access to LHR?
Well, I guess SN is not forking out anything anymore
LH has shifted some money from one pocket into another pocket ...
Let's not be naive here too, shall we?
The point is bmi needed to be refinancied urgently, yet LH was not jumping from joy to do so, so they've clearly decided to 'spread the risk'.
iso forking out £190m and lend it to bmi, they've only provided a loan for half of that, and asked other airlines of its group to do a contribution too (in return for slots). LX took over 6 slots and paid cash for themand we know SN too took over 4 slots. It would be naive to believe SN has just been given these slots for free or to think LH has taken charge of the payment without guarantee whatsoever. In that case they could have just as well given bmi the money up front!
Reality is that either SN put a lot of money on the table itself (they do have reserves, but so far were very extremely reluctant to use them, although with the addition of a 5th A330 and the project in RDC, they appear to have changed strategy, maybe the purchase of LHR slots is part of that?), OR LH has given a loan to SN to pay bmi for the slots, thus spreading the financial risk and exposure for the Germans in case of bankruptcy of bmi.
And then there's the issue of who bought the other 3 pairs of slots at LHR?
As you've said: we're not going to find out soon how all this was played, but all signs are there for SN having paid some very serious money for those slots: the only question remaining is where do these tens of millions of euro come from? If it comes from LH, then there's likely some kind of mechanism in place which provides them with some kind of financial guarantee, because they currently own only 45% of SN, so they aren't just going to 'give' away things for free....
