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Virgin Australia administrators halt bondholder payments, appoint Morgan Stanley for sale
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Virgin Australia Holdings Ltd’s (VAH.AX) administrators have halted payments to bondholders and appointed Morgan Stanley to help sell the airline within four months, said a participant in a meeting of creditors owed nearly A$7 billion ($4.58 billion).
Administrators from Deloitte Australia were appointed this month to restructure and sell Virgin, making it the Asia-Pacific airline industry’s biggest victim of the coronavirus crisis.
The administrators this week issued an information memorandum and opened a data room for interested parties that had signed non-disclosure agreements, administrator Vaughan Strawbridge said at the meeting on Thursday, a creditor told Reuters. Strawbridge said the airline expected high-quality bids, but he did not name the parties, according to the creditor, who declined to be named for fear of breaching confidentiality. A Deloitte spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Private equity and distressed situation specialists Apollo Global Management, Oaktree Capital Management and BGH Capital are among more than 10 firms to express interest in the restructuring, Reuters has reported, citing five sources. Deloitte also told creditors it would seek court orders to extend by three months a May 22 deadline to hold a second meeting. Delaying it to Aug. 22 would give it more time to investigate the company’s affairs and find a buyer, the source said.
Virgin owes A$2.3 billion in secured debt to banks and aircraft financiers, A$2 billion to unsecured bondholders, A$1.9 billion of aircraft lessors, and A$450 million to employees. Trade creditors are also owed A$167 million and landlords are owed A$71 million, court documents show. Although lenders face the slashing of their debts, Strawbridge said that there probably were sufficient assets to cover employee entitlements, but that the administrators had put a moratorium on the coupon payments on the bonds to preserve the company’s cash balance, the meeting participant said.
Strawbridge could not estimate the value of those bonds, the source said. For now, Virgin is flying a skeleton schedule under its regular management team as administrators seek a buyer for the entire operation.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-virgin-australia/virgin-australia-administrators-halt-bondholder-payments-appoint-morgan-stanley-for-sale-idUSKBN22C0C6
>Ellen got the only interview with MGM security guard.
After he went "missing" in Mexico for three days.
chek't
MAGIC11 C-560 sw from Yokota AB to Okinawa
a baby one.
Chinavirus vaccine to be fastest in history: Gates Foundation CEO
Mark Suzman says treatment access for all is key to defeating COVID-19
The fight against the coronavirus pandemic will yield the fastest-developed and most rapidly distributed vaccine in human history, the head of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has said, adding that research into the treatment could bear fruit in as little as 12 months.
"We are very confident that there will be a vaccine. It will be the fastest vaccine ever created in human history, and it will go to people faster than ever," Mark Suzman, the CEO of the U.S.-based philanthropic organization, said Friday in an exclusive interview with Caixin.
His comments come as scientists across the world race to develop treatments for COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus that has officially infected about 3 million people and killed more than 200,000, according to a tally kept by Johns Hopkins University in the U.S.
While governments, businesses and individuals are funding promising projects, in many cases charitable organizations are also stepping in to provide money and other resources. Earlier this month, the Gates Foundation committed a further $150 million to the battle against the pandemic, in addition to the $100 million it had previously pledged.
Much of that money will go toward developing a vaccine, but a portion of it will also fund COVID-19 testing and prevention in developing countries where healthcare resources are scarce, Suzman said.
That's important for regions in the southern hemisphere that are only now moving into the winter flu season, he said, citing the examples of Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Southeast Asia. "Until you have testing at scale, we're sort of flying blind."
Key to where the money ends up is what Suzman calls "global access" – ensuring that the solutions to the crisis are directed to all countries around the world, not just the most developed ones.
"For a global pandemic, we need to have global solutions," he said. "That means when there is a vaccine, we're going to have to manufacture 7 billion doses of that vaccine. That's pretty unprecedented."
Despite his optimism that an effective treatment will be found, Suzman cautioned that any potential vaccine remains up to a year away.
"Twelve months [is] likely. That's probably our best case," he said. "Maybe … if everything goes well, it'll be a little faster than that."
https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Caixin/Coronavirus-vaccine-to-be-fastest-in-history-Gates-Foundation-CEO
this. not to mention financially they are 50x worse off.
mebby you should post fresher news…faggit