4 ms·
While I agree with your point in general, Norwegian is done. They've got a heavy debt burden that's due soon. They will either go bankrupt and be restructured,
by marvin 7y ago
While I agree with your point in general, Norwegian is done. They've got a heavy debt burden that's due soon. They will either go bankrupt and be restructured, or have to do a wipeout-level stock offering (unlikely in the current risk climate).
- axlee 7y agoCan't Norway bail them out? It's not like they lack the capital, and they're the country largest airline.
- brianbreslin 7y agoI think they are norwegian in name only. Their headquarters is london.
- nkristoffersen 7y agoWikipedia states the headquarters is in Fornebu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Air_Shuttle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norwegian_Air_Shuttle
- ucarion 7y agoThis is not to contradict what you're saying, but it should be clarified that Norway's flag carrier is Scandinavian Airlines, not Norwegian Air: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Airlines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_Airlines Again: I'm aware that you haven't said anything to the contrary. But it's useful context.
- michaeljohansen 7y agoWell. We Norwegians joke that SAS stands for "svensk alt sammen" (Swedish all together). Some of us consider Norwegian Air Shuttle to be more of a Norwegian airline. And yes, a bailout is likely. The govt will likely help keep Norwegian Air's planes flying during the Coronavirus period. Additional help is possible.
- hnarn 7y agoLooking only at state ownership, the Swedish and Danish governments own about the same share of SAS (~14%) and 1/3rd of the company stock is privately owned.[1] [1]: https://www.sasgroup.net/annualreports/2018/assets/pdf/eng/SAS_AR17-18_ENG.pdf https://www.sasgroup.net/annualreports/2018/assets/pdf/eng/S...
- Jhsto 7y agoMeanwhile, the Finnish government owns 55.8% of Finnair.
- gerikson 7y agoSAS is furloughing 10K employees.
- marvin 7y agoLet's see what happens. But Norwegian privately owned, so if the state does bail them out, I sure as hell hope they wipe out the common shareholders in the process. This culture of moral hazard, "privatize the profit, nationalize the risk", is pure bullshit. I probably agree with providing liquidity in the form of some sort of short-term loan in order to live through a completely unexpected macro crisis, if it's done on equal terms to everyone. But Norwegian won't survive that either, I think.
- ShinTakuya 7y agoYes, this! I wouldn't be happy as a shareholder if this happened but if the last resort for a company is a government bailout the government should own the company and benefit from the recovery.
- reaperducer 7y agoCan't Norway bail them out? It's not like they lack the capital, and they're the country largest airline. Italy just did so for Alitalia. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-alitalia-idUSKBN2120PH https://www.reuters.com/article/us-italy-alitalia-idUSKBN212...
- marcosdumay 7y agoWhy would a country ever bail out a private company? (Except for corruption of course.) They can always estatise it, but I don't imagine an airliner is strategic enough for that.
- mceachen 7y agoTheir stock has been hit hard since Feb (trading at 42) to currently trading at 7.
- marvin 7y agoThey're down from an all-time high of 200, so they're considered pretty much toast.
- oat_bravo_nap 7y agoRelevant portion from article: > Having lost money each year from 2017 to 2019 and raised cash from shareholders on three occasions, the company’s debts and liabilities had grown to 82 billion Norwegian crowns ($7.9 billion) by the end of last year.
- dirtydroog 7y agoYup, Norwegian Air is about to go bust.
- chatmasta 7y agoIf that’s true, it’s too bad. Norwegian is my favorite airline for trans-Atlantic flights because of great service and reasonable prices.