The SAS strike is over, and the company may have lost close to NOK 2 billion because large parts of the aircraft fleet have been on the ground for more than two weeks.
The company is now looking for new owners, and has announced that it needs SEK 9.5 billion in the form of new shares.
The question is who will line up with the money. The Norwegian state and the Swedish state have said no.
Jan Petter Sissener, who heads the management company Sissener, says that his company may be interested in injecting fresh money into SAS.
– It will depend entirely on what the total package looks like. That SAS has reached the goal with the pilots is only a bit, and a very small bit. The big part is getting to the end with the creditors, Sissener says to NRK.
The hedge fund Sissener Canopus has around NOK 2 billion under management, and has previously participated in capital increases in the airlines Norwegian and Flyr.
SAS is now under bankruptcy protection in the USA according to the so-called Chapter 11 rules, and aims to get its lenders to agree to convert SEK 20 billion in debt into new shares.
– They must show us and other investors that they have a business model going forward that makes it possible to make money. That’s the most important thing. WE’ll be looking at that, absolutely. And are neither positive nor negative. But there are many puzzle pieces that need to be put in place, he says.
The Wallenberg family is also keeping the door open for investing in SAS again. Wallenberg Investments AB is today SAS’s third largest shareholder, with an ownership interest of 3.42 percent.
– Wallenberg Investments will decide whether we participate in an upcoming capital increase or not when there is a prospectus and there is greater clarity about the implementation of SAS forward, says Jabob Wallenberg in an email from the company’s spokesperson.
NRK has also asked Folketrygdfondet whether it may be relevant to participate in a new share issue (capital increase) in SAS, but the fund will not comment on individual companies.
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