Want To Buy An Airline?

Ever want to buy an airline? Would you still buy it if the planes did not come with the deal? Confused?

According to Skift.com, India's Kingfisher Airlines may be up for sale.

Photo Credit: www.fnbpeterstown.com

Kingfisher Airlines is in debt to various banks in the sum of around $1.16 Billion USD. In October 2012, Kingfisher's operation license was suspended Directorate General Of Civil Aviation and has since expire. With the company making no money, the banks that hold the debt are anxious to collect something on the paper that they hold.

According to Skift, the company pledged the Kingfisher brand as collateral for some of their loans and one of the banks is looking to off load the brand.

"The airline gave the “Kingfisher” brand as collateral to bankers. The Kingfisher brand was valued at Rs.3,000 crore (US $501 million) by audit firm Grant Thornton India some five years ago.

The list of trademarks offered include “fly kingfisher” (label), “fly kingfisher”, “flying models”, “fly the good times”, “funliner”, “kingfisher” and “flying bird device”. 

There is a disagreement about who really held/holds the Kingfisher brand trademark.

"On 14 February 2013, United Breweries, the parent company of Kingfisher Airlines, said that it fully owns the Kingfisher brand that is registered by the company under trademark classes pertaining to alcoholic beverages and that this hasn’t been hypothecated or pledged to any lender to secure loans, contradicting the contention of creditors to the airline that’s part of the UB group.

A senior UB Group executive said the beer and airline brands were “different” and they are covered under different categories. “UB Group has not pledged the beer brand for loans to Kingfisher Airlines,” he added."

Why did I say above that you can buy an airline without the planes? Well, the creditors have already starting liquidating those assets.

Therefore, you can buy an airline, but just not the planes.

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