Air China becomes largest shareholder of Cathay Pacific

[sn26567]

The Chinese government has decided to inject 1.5 billion yuan into Air China, helping the airline to increase its shareholding at Cathay Pacific to 29.99%.

This looks like the beginning of the nationalisation of the most successful Chinese airline, based in former capitalistic British colony Hong Kong...

[kiwiandrew]

I thought CA increased their shareholding to 29.9% more than 2 years ago... in any case, that still does not make them the largest share holder as I believe Swires still hold around 40%

[BrightCedars]

1.5B CNY is worth just about 163M EUR, I doubt that's enough to take enough CX shares to leap the gap to Swire's ownership level. You need to come back with more details on this.

[andorra-airport]

The Chinese government has decided to inject 1.5 billion yuan into Air China, helping the airline to increase its shareholding at Cathay Pacific to 29.99%.

Not totally correct. Air China owns 29.99% for about 2 years now. China National Aviation Holding Company ( controlling shareholder of Air China) received CNY1 billion from the Ministry of Finance to increase its shareholdings in Cathay Pacific. But Air China didn't give details of this stake increase. Maybe that news will come later.

[kiwiandrew]

IIRC from the news stories when CA increased their stake a couple of years ago the reason they stopped at 29.9% (rather than 30% ) was that if they went any higher they would be legally obliged to launch a takeover bid. I will see whether I can find the news article from 2009.