Leasing company owned by the Chinese state gets large stake after rescue.
The Chinese state is getting a lot of say in Norwegian, which has just implemented a comprehensive rescue plan that has saved the airline from bankruptcy .
The Chinese-owned leasing company BOC Aviation becomes a major shareholder and receives 12.67 percent of the shares.
This is what Norwegian writes in a notice to the Norwegian Stock Exchange.
BOC Aviation has acquired a large asset in the airline against the fact that Norwegian no longer owes money to the leasing company. That’s money – a total of $ 12.7 billion – Norwegian owes the Chinese for renting aircraft.
As a result, the Chinese state will only acquire the second largest stake in Norwegian by the Irish leasing company Aercap Holdings.
Precisely repayment of debt against an ownership interest in the company has been a key part of the rescue plan.
Vestager warned against the Chinese
The acquisition comes just over a month after EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager warned that the Chinese could hostile takeovers of important European companies because of the corona crisis.
Here she sees the individual states as an important piece in that game.
“We have no objection to the member states acting as players in the financial markets if deemed necessary to prevent a hostile takeover,” she said in an interview with the Financial Times.
