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Australia-New Zealand travel bubble pauses Air New Zealand capital raising
April 9th 2021
Air New Zealand (Air NZ) said today it had pushed back the deadline to complete a planned capital raising by three months, to September 30, 2021, due to the "evolving circumstances" related to the global impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Read More » These included the recent announcement of quarantine-free travel between Australia and New Zealand, as well as New Zealand's vaccination program timing and the potential implications for broader border reopening. Air NZ said all these factors were fundamental to its financial performance. The New Zealand government, or Crown, had reaffirmed its intention to participate in the capital raising to maintain its majority shareholding. "In light of these evolving circumstances, the Crown and the Company have agreed it would be appropriate to defer the equity capital raising to allow time to assess these evolving circumstances further," Air NZ chair, Dame Therese Walsh, said in regulatory filings to the Australian Securities Exchange and New Zealand's NZX. The capital raising is intended to have debt and equity components, Walsh said. The airline has increased its government loan facility to NZ$1.5 billion (US$1.1 billion), from NZ$900 million previously, to ensure it had sufficient liquidity until the proposed capital raising was completed.
