Ryanair to buy Aer Lingus ?

airazurxtror · Post by **airazurxtror** » 01 Dec 2008, 10:29

This morning, Ryanair has offered to buy the AerLingus shares at 1,40 euro - Ryanair already owns 29,82 % of the shares.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/bre ... king16.htm

http://www.ryanair.com/site/promos/cash ... tation.pdf

Depretair · Post by **Depretair** » 01 Dec 2008, 20:05

Hello,

Quoting "lesoir.be",

Aer Lingus rejette l’offre de rachat de Ryanairlundi 01.12.2008, 19:29

La compagnie aérienne irlandaise Aer Lingus a rejeté l’offre de rachat à 748 millions d’euros lancée par sa compatriote et rivale Ryanair, jugeant qu’elle la sous-évaluait, et a recommandé à ses actionnaires de la repousser. « Le conseil d’administration estime que l’offre (de Ryanair) sous-évalue significativement Aer Lingus », et « rejette cette nouvelle offre », a annoncé la compagnie dans un communiqué, ajoutant qu’elle recommandait vivement à ses actionnaires de ne pas donner suite à la proposition de rachat. Aer Lingus, qui qualifie cette nouvelle offre de rachat de non-sollicitée, a rappelé qu’une première tentative de rachat avait échoué en 2006 et que la Commission européenne avait par la suite interdit à Ryanair de prendre son contrôle.

Cheers,

Olivier

Post by **sn26567** » 04 Dec 2008, 14:46

Two years ago, Ryanair offered EUR 2.80 per share. The value of Aer Lingus seems to have dropped significantly.

euroflyer · Post by **euroflyer** » 04 Dec 2008, 14:58

sn26567 wrote:Two years ago, Ryanair offered EUR 2.80 per share. The value of Aer Lingus seems to have dropped significantly.

Well must shares have dropped over the past weeks and months quite significantly

LX-LGX · Post by **LX-LGX** » 28 Jan 2009, 20:45

Ryanair today announced it withdraws the (hostile) take over offer.

Source: luchtvaartnieuws.nl
http://www.luchtvaartnieuws.nl/news/?ID=29421

( free translation possible through www.translate.google.com )

Boeing767copilot · Post by **Boeing767copilot** » 17 Jul 2012, 14:53

Ryanair confirms its intentions towards Are Lingus

http://www.ryanair.com/doc/news/2012/377956ACL.pdf

RoMax · Post by **RoMax** » 17 Jul 2012, 17:50

Boeing767copilot wrote:Ryanair confirms its intentions towards Are Lingus

http://www.ryanair.com/doc/news/2012/377956ACL.pdf

And Aer Lingus already confirmed that they are still not interested in RYR's intentions.

airazurxtror · Post by **airazurxtror** » 17 Jul 2012, 19:43

The opinion of Aer Lingus (and of its unions) does not matter; what matters is the other shareholders willingness to sell their shares to Ryanair - or not.

RoMax · Post by **RoMax** » 17 Jul 2012, 19:53

airazurxtror wrote:The opinion of Aer Lingus (and of its unions) does not matter; what matters is the other shareholders willingness to sell their shares to Ryanair - or not.

EI's shareholders are not interested either (the government who wants to sell their stake of 25% is not interested in RYR). And that for one important reason. If EI ends up in RYR hands the Irish market is hugely dominated by RYR, the EU never allowed this and they will not do it in the future. EI is the only airline than succeeded a little bit in keeping RYR from total dominance in Ireland, Europe will never allow that RYR takes over this airline.

Charlie Roy · Post by **Charlie Roy** » 17 Jul 2012, 19:58

The Irish government's language has suspiciously changed dramatically recently. Now they simply declare in a matter of fact way that they will study the bid instead of their previous stance of "No way José"...

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0717/ryanai ... iness.html

RoMax · Post by **RoMax** » 17 Jul 2012, 20:15

Charlie Roy wrote:The Irish government's language has suspiciously changed dramatically recently. Now they simply declare in a matter of fact way that they will study the bid instead of their previous stance of "No way José"...

http://www.rte.ie/news/2012/0717/ryanai ... iness.html

Because they risk that RYR gets 'really angry' because they don't take their official bid seriously. In fact they are 'forced' to look at every bid.

airazurxtror · Post by **airazurxtror** » 18 Jul 2012, 11:04

Aer Lingus said a takeover would mean the number of routes that Ryanair monopolises would sharply increase.

Aer Lingus now against monopolies !
Wonders will never cease ...
When one remembers how Aer Lingus, in order to preserve its monopoly, wanted the Irish Government to deny any traffic right to Ryanair, nearly sinking it in the process ...

RoMax · Post by **RoMax** » 18 Jul 2012, 16:44

http://www.flightglobal.com/news/articl ... le-374495/

Aer Lingus is giving the advice to their shareholders not to agree with this bid. As, in de first place, "the bid is too low/not in line with the real value of EI" and, in the second place, the amount of routes on wich RYR will get a monopoly will increase to much (something the EU will never allow, especially as the amount of influenced routes is much higher as in 2006 when the EU already blocked a deal).
The most important shareholder (the government) said some weeks ago they don't want RYR to take over EI, so probably they still have the same opinion.

But in case the shareholders don't listen to the board of EI (which is already very unlikely), they are preparing a way to legaly block the bid of Ryanair... I don't think it can more clear than this...

airazurxtror · Post by **airazurxtror** » 18 Jul 2012, 17:15

The full Ryanair argument is here :

http://www.ryanair.com/doc/news/2012/377956ACL.pdf

Extract :

Since 2006, Europe’s flag carrier airlines have continued to consolidate. Air France, which owns KLM,
acquired a 25 percent stake in Alitalia. BA merged with Iberia to create IAG and then acquired British
Midland (BMI). Lufthansa acquired Swiss Air and Austrian Air, as well as taking a significant minority
stake in SN Brussels. Each of these transactions has been approved by the competition authorities.
The most significant of these consolidations is the recent IAG (BA and Iberia) takeover of BMI, where
the No. 1 airline by passengers and landing slots at Heathrow was allowed to acquire the No. 2. This
transaction was approved despite the fact that Heathrow is one of Europe’s most congested airports,
operating at or close to full slot capacity at all times of the day, all year round, and where there is little,
if any, opportunity for new entrants or increased competition to develop.

ezis · Post by **ezis** » 18 Jul 2012, 17:41

This seems like a very false argument.
BA and Iberia combined at LHR will never even be close to the dominance of Ryanair and Aer Lingus combined. Together they seem to have much more than half of all the flights out of Dublin, I'd say 70 to 80%. Combined, 7 of the 20 busiest routes out of Dublin will be out of compition.
Additionally, London has several airports. Dublin has not.

RoMax · Post by **RoMax** » 18 Jul 2012, 17:41

Indeed, even the BMI take-over by BMI hasn't the same result as a RYR take-over of EI will have in Ireland. BA now owns 50-55% of the slots at LHR? Several big home carriers around Europe have a larger share, so BA/BMI combined is still ok. But let's combine EI and RYR for exemple at DUB...

RYR can say what they want, this will not happen. EI doesn't want it, the shareholders don't want it and the European Union will (almost certainly) not approve it.

airazurxtror · Post by **airazurxtror** » 18 Jul 2012, 18:46

As they say on the other side of the Channel :
Wait and see !
and
Third time lucky ?

Post by **sn26567** » 18 Jul 2012, 21:53

MR_Boeing wrote:the shareholders don't want it.

I think the opposite: the private shareholders would probably very much like to get the value that RYR is offering for their shares, rather than the poor value given by the free market.

Aer Lingus wrote:"the bid is too low/not in line with the real value of EI"

"Not in line with the real value of EI" is probably true, but "too low" certainly not!

RoMax · Post by **RoMax** » 18 Jul 2012, 22:54

Remember also other airlines are interested. Etihad (who already took a marginal share of 3%) for exemple is very interested in the 25% share of the government (to start with). Are they willing to offer more per share as RYR? I don't know. But ok you may be right that the private shareholders of EI might be (very) interested in the bid of RYR (probably that's the reason EI's board gives 'recomodations' to their shareholders). I have no idea who holds the remaining of the shares (next to the 25% of the government, about 3% by Etihad and 29% of RYR), but at least the big shareholder we do know (the government) will not sell to RYR and the other shareholders are probably not so stupid to really believe that the EU would approve the deal.

Charlie Roy · Post by **Charlie Roy** » 19 Jul 2012, 00:11

I am Irish and follow the Irish media daily. The government have done a complete turn around recently from "the bid is not good for competition, we're totally against it for many reasons" to "as long as flights are maintained between Dublin and Heathrow that's enough".

The government is desperate for cash and under EU pressure to sell assets asap.

By the way, almost 10% of the shares are owned by staff (mostly pilots) who took it upon themselves to buy shares after Ryanair's initial bid in 2006. These shareholders are thus very unlikely to sell.

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