Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Air NZ denies buying Virgin shares

Air New Zealand advised the NZ stock exchange it had not bought any shares in airline Virgin Blue but its statement, made in response to media reports, did not rule out such a move.

A Sydney Morning Herald report on Friday said the move was seen as a way for this country's national carrier to cement its relationship with Virgin Blue.

Two months ago the two airlines announced they intended to seek regulatory approval to create an alliance on trans-Tasman operations, saying the proposed alliance would allow them to collaborate on future route and product planning, code sharing and frequent flyer program benefits.

On Friday Air New Zealand said it was conscious that airline alliances such as the one planned with Virgin Blue frequently included an equity aspect, but the proposed alliance did not do so.

The necessary regulatory approvals for the trans-Tasman alliance were still in process and it had received no indication of the outcome of that decision, Air New Zealand said.

A final decision on the alliance was expected by the end of the year.

Air New Zealand appeared to leave open the possibility of taking a stake in Virgin Blue at some point. Its announcement said that in the event of any such investment it would advise the market in accordance with market disclosure obligations.

Any such purchase would require Foreign Investment Review Board approval in accordance with Australian policy on foreign investment due to the substantial ownership of Air New Zealand by the New Zealand Government, Air New Zealand said.

The SMH reported aviation industry sources had said Air New Zealand wanted to buy up to 15 per cent of Virgin Blue, after the airlines appeared to have won indicative support from regulators for the proposed joint venture on services between New Zealand and Australia.

A strategic stake was seen as giving Air New Zealand a foot in the door for the next wave of consolidation in the aviation industry, which was emerging from one of its worst downturns.

Virgin Blue and Qantas were often seen as likely candidates in the longer term for tie-ups with airlines in the burgeoning Asian market.

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: Air New Zealand, Foreign Investment Review Board, Qantas, Virgin Blue

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the CIO comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: Air New Zealand, alliance, virgin blue
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • The Big Six: The CIO Executive Council’s Frameworks for IT Value and Leadership
    This overview of six of the CIO Executive Council’s most important pieces of intellectual capital represents the thought leadership of literally hundreds of global CIOs spanning over half a decade. It is intended to convey the Council’s position on the current and future CIO role and the value that IT should be creating for the enterprise. We hope that it offers the IT community an intriguing and comprehensive roadmap for continued success.
    Learn more »
  • Endpoint Buyers Guide
    It takes more than antivirus to stop today’s advanced threats. Protecting corporate assets requires a complete security solution that includes anti-malware, host-based intrusion prevention (HIPS), web protection, patch assessment, application and device control, network access control, data loss prevention, firewall and other capabilities. In short, you need an endpoint protection solution. We examine the top vendors according to market share and industry analysis: Kaspersky Lab, McAfee, Sophos, Symantec and Trend Micro. Each vendor’s solutions are evaluated according to: Product features and capabilities, Effectiveness, Performance, Usability, Data protection, and Technical support.
    Learn more »
  • IDC Case Study - EMC IT Increasing Efficiency, Reducing Costs, and Optimising IT with Data Deduplication
    This IDC Buyers Case Study: Explores the benefits EMC realised from the use of a range of EMC's own backup and recovery solutions that leverage deduplication technology; Identifies the unique backup challenges for different computing environments and how data deduplication can address these environments; Highlight EMC's legacy backup environment and the changes EMC made as part of a transformation process to increase efficiency, reduce cost and optimise IT - as part of its journey to the private cloud.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.
Recent comments