Apollo to cut stake in Minnesota’s Sun Country Airlines

Just two months after going public, Sun Country Airlines (SY, Minneapolis/St. Paul) announced in a May 17 statement a proposed secondary public offering, of 6 million shares of its common stock. The shares will be sold by affiliates of Apollo Global Management, the low-cost carrier’s majority owner, so that the stake held by the New York-based private equity firm, which acquired Sun Country in 2018, will reduce from 71.6% to 61.1%. Sun Country said that it would not receive any proceeds from the offering. As part of the sale, the underwriters will have a 30-day option to buy 900,000 additional shares. Barclays and Morgan Stanley are acting as joint lead bookrunners for the proposed offering. If the underwriters fully exercise their options, the stake – held via the Apollo Global Management entity SCA Horus Holdings – would fall to 59.5%. Jude Bricker, who has been the airline’s chief executive since July 2017, has a 2.8% shareholding. Sun Country’s stock was down by about 9% in late morning trading on the day of the announcement, according to Twin Cities Business magazine. However, overall, the share price has risen significantly since the Initial Public Offering (IPO) in March. As previously reported, Sun Country Airlines sold 9,090,909 common shares in the IPO priced at USD24 each, raising USD218 million, a sum it pledged to invest in expanding its fleet and workforce ahead of an anticipated rebound in leisure travel in the United States. The share price closed on May 18 at USD35.10, Nasdaq stock data show. On May 5, Sun Country reported a net profit of USD12.4 million for the first quarter of 2021 on operating revenue of USD127.6 million. In expectation of a travel rebound, it announced 18 new routes last month to the southern US, Mexico, and the Caribbean, including six from Minneapolis/St. Paul, two from Duluth, two from Green Bay, one from Madison, WI, five from Milwaukee General Mitchell, and two from Rochester, MN.