Norwegian to put emergency rescue plan up for vote

Norwegian (DY, Oslo Gardermoen) has scheduled an extraordinary general meeting for December 17 to ask shareholders to back a restructuring plan that includes raising fresh money from investors, it outlined in a stock market filing on December 3. The board of directors’ plan lists a set of actions that “ultimately will potentially enable the company to exit its current Irish examinership process through implementations that aim to right-size the company operations at a level of proven profitability,” the filing said referring to the Chapter 11-style protection it initiated last month. This will mainly be done by reducing the struggling carrier’s weighty fleet and thereby “reconstruct a balance sheet that is focused and strong enough to attract new investors and stakeholders including potentially Norwegian government support.” The plan entails an equity issue of up to NOK4 billion kroner (USD453 million) in the form of common stock or hybrid equity, to current shareholders “and other potential stakeholders”. This is viewed as a final step in the process. Before that, a debt-to-equity swap would take place including aircraft financing or leasing liabilities, supplier liabilities, bond obligations, and potentially also arrangements that allow Norwegian to pay only power-by-the-hour rates for aircraft use until 2022. Should all these actions be successful, current shareholders will together with current debtors become “meaningful minority shareholders” of the company. “Our goal is to put in place a financially strong and competitive airline. This will lead to a new financial structure, an adapted fleet size, and an improved offer to our customers,” pledged CEO Jacob Schram. “We are in a demanding situation, but we work systematically with plans that will take into account the interests of customers, employees, lenders, and the company’s shareholders.” CFO Geir Karlsen elaborated to the newspaper Dagens Næringsliv: “In the course of 100 days, we must have a discussion with equity investors, and as soon as we are out of this we hope to have new investors on board. We need authorisations from all participants in the process, and know that we are asking for very broad authorisations.” The news prompted a rise in Norwegian’s share price on the Oslo Stock Exchange, the newspaper reported.