After a two-year-long bankruptcy process, Scandinavia’s flagship airline SAS AB is now under the ownership of Air France-KLM and private equity firm Castlelake LP, with former Novo Nordisk A/S executive Kare Schultz at the helm of its new board, Bloomberg News reported. The move comes amid much overdue airline consolidation in Europe in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, and a recent slowing in travel demand. It will also shore up Air France-KLM’s position in the Nordics, a reliable source of active travelers.
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Denmark
Danish company Scandinavia Farms Invest has gone bankrupt after only a few years and at least half a billion danish crowns invested, ScandAsia reported. Scandinavian Farm Invest has been running a big pig farm between Beijing and Shanghai. It had been one of the most effective farms in the country before everything started to go wrong. It wasn’t just one drop that made the cup overflow, but many things that started to go wrong for pig production in China. Tricky market conditions included an increase in the price of the feed, while the price of pig meat has decreased.
Scandinavian airline SAS AB will cancel and redeem all of its common shares and commercial hybrid bonds when it emerges from chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in the U.S. around June, Bloomberg News reported. “SAS reiterates its expectation that there will be only a modest recovery for general unsecured creditors, no recovery for subordinated creditors and no value for SAS AB’s existing shareholders,” the carrier said in a statement released at 11 p.m. Stockholm time on Tuesday.
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The Danish company Nordic Waste has triggered a political scandal by filing for bankruptcy, EuroNews reported. The bankruptcy of the company - which deals with the reprocessing of contaminated soil - could cost taxpayers €27 million. After they post their bankruptcy filing, the Danish state will likely have to pay for the clean-up work required after a mega landslide at a reprocessing plant for contaminated soil. At the beginning of the week, the Ministry of the Environment issued interim injunctions against Nordic Waste. After that ruling, the company declared bankruptcy.
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The volume of commercial property transactions in the Nordic region fell to the lowest level in a decade last year, in an ominous sign for landlords needing to offload assets to bolster their finances, Bloomberg News reported. In 2023, only €20 billion ($21.9 billion) of properties traded hands in the region, property adviser Colliers International Group Inc said in an emailed statement. Activity tumbled by 64% in Finland compared with a year earlier, while volumes in Norway, Sweden and Denmark slumped by slightly more than half.
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SAS's rescue has moved a step closer after a U.S. court approved a revised plan from the Scandinavian airline to raise equity, Reuters reported. The long-suffering airline filed for chapter 11 protection last year. The court approval of the fundraising proposal - a key element of the "SAS Forward" rescue plan - means investors may start placing bids for a stake in the airline.
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SAS will not be using the second tranche of its $700 million debtor-in-possession (DIP) term loan in the second quarter of the year, due to stronger than expected development of the airline's liquidity, the airline said on Monday, Reuters reported. SAS may, depending on the development of its liquidity, continue discussions with Apollo regarding access to the second tranche of the DIP term loan at a later stage of the chapter 11 process.
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Scandinavian airline SAS AB said on Thursday it had initiated steps to raise equity and would seek bids as part of its ongoing chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings in the U.S., Reuters reported. The embattled carrier filed for bankruptcy protection in the U.S. last year as it sought to slash costs and debt amid strikes from pilots after wage talks collapsed. The airline, which earlier aimed to raise SEK 9.5 billion ($911.20 million) in equity financing, now said the final sum would be dependent on the bidding process and generation of additional liquidity by the airline.
Denmark's central bank raised its key interest rate by 0.75 percentage points to 0.65% on Thursday, ending a nearly decade-long experiment of negative interest rates, Reuters reported. "The interest rate increase is a consequence of the increase by the European Central Bank of its main monetary policy rate" the central bank said in a statement. Earlier on Thursday, the ECB raised its benchmark deposit rate by 75 basis points to 0.75% and signaled further hikes.
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Crisis-hit Scandinavian airline SAS sees savings of $200 million through 2026 from a new collective bargaining deal reached with most of its pilots following a crippling two-week strike in July, Reuters reported. The flag carrier, pressured for years by low-cost rivals and ravaged by the pandemic, in February announced a big restructuring plan, and on the second day of the strike sought U.S. bankruptcy protection.
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