Quebecois gov’t seeks local buyers for Air Transat

The government of Quebec would strongly prefer to find a local investor for Air Transat (TS, Montréal Trudeau) rather than see the airline taken over by Air Canada (AC, Montréal Trudeau) but so far has not been able to find any willing party, region’s prime minister and the airline’s founder François Legault has told the media. “There first must be a serious Quebecois investor in order for us to be able to support them, whether it is through [public investment funds] Investissement Québec or Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec,” he said. The regional PM, who is the leader of the autonomist party Coalition Avenir Québec, added that for now, it seemed as if the government was the only local entity willing to invest in Air Transat. Legault founded Air Transat as a businessman in 1986 and left the airline in 1997, before launching the political career that eventually led him to assume the premiership of the French-speaking province. As previously reported, Air Canada and Air Transat recently announced revised terms to the proposed takeover, which will see the acquisition price slashed from the original proposal of CAD720 million Canadian dollars (USD549 million) to CAD189 million (USD144 million). Meanwhile, federal Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic Leblanc told CTV that the government was not ruling out partial renationalisation of Air Canada or WestJet (WS, Calgary) as a means of support for the carriers. “My colleagues [Transport Minister] Marc Garneau and [Finance Minister] Chrystia Freeland are looking at a whole series of options of what government support might look like for the sector. We haven’t made any decisions in that level of detail yet,” Leblanc underlined while saying that one of the options under consideration was a recapitalisation of the carriers in return for stakes.