The Romanian state has taken over Blue Air (Romania) (BLA, Bucharest Henri Coanda), confiscating a 75% stake in the dormant carrier - just as media reports revealed one month ago that it would.
“We have taken over the shares, the takeover has been completed, and now we are trying to form a new board of directors. The people who are now on the board have not resigned yet, but they will,” said Daniel Geantă, head of the Authority for the Administration of State Assets (Autoritatea pentru Administrarea Activelor Statului - AAAS), told the Romanian-language news site Economica.net.
“It’s that delivery-reception period and we have had problems accessing the documents, and there are small delays due to the fact that the documents we requested are not being made available to us,” he added.
The state institution is requiring the closure of the airline’s financial statements and employment contracts, as well as a statement of debts and creditors, and soon the AAAS will embark on a full audit of the company.
Blue Air accumulated debts of over EUR230 million euros (USD244 million), including a RON300.8 million lei (USD65 million) six-year loan from state-owned export-import bank EximBank in late 2020 to assist it during the pandemic. For that state aid, the shareholders pledged 75% of the shares, according to Economica.net.
“We cannot be responsible, as a public institution, for what happened until we can say we have taken over the company,” Geantă said.
He acknowledged that another factor in the delays is the fact that the AAAS is talking to only one individual who can provide them with these documents, namely the commercial director, who has not resigned yet.
An investor in the United States is said to be interested in taking over Blue Air - but with a condition that Geantă considers impossible to meet.
“One of the requirements is that the insolvency proceedings - if it were to go into insolvency - involve litigation under US bankruptcy law, New York state Chapter 11. There is a point where it could make this transfer, but I can’t tell you if it would succeed or not. We have started analysis of this procedure, but the documentation is a thick one, not just a page or two,” he said, adding that he doubted Romanian and European legislation would allow the investor’s requirements.
Assets include three owned B737-500s that remain in the fleet, according to the ch-aviation fleets module; a majority shareholding in Airline Invest, a Bucharest-based company established in December 2019 and owned by investor, former pilot, and later Blue Air CEO Teodor Cristian Rada; and a 10-hectare plot of land the company failed to sell before the Covid-19 outbreak.
