During the month of December alone, SAS lost nearly 1 billion SEK after tax, according to an update from the company on Thursday afternoon. This corresponds to approximately NOK 960 million at today’s exchange rate.
In comparison, the company lost More than half a billion SEK in the previous month.
During December, cash holdings decreased from 7.2 to 5.1 billion SEK. In contrast, the debt was reduced from approximately 61 billion to 59.4 billion SEK.
SAS submits the financial results every month, which is what needs to be done in connection with the bankruptcy process in the USA called Chapter 11.
– Scary earnings begin
Analyst Jakob Pedersen at Denmark’s Sydbank wrote in a commentary that the December development “builds scary earnings to start in the year.” SAS has different fiscal years from November to October each year.
In particular, Pedersen points out, income of more than SEK 2.6 billion in December was lower than indicated by the traffic figures for the month.
“It’s about SEK 100 million lower than our expectations,” he writes.
He notes that cash holdings have decreased by SEK 3.5 billion since the end of October:
“SAS is still struggling to meet the final terms of obtaining the second half of the bridging loan from Apollo (the lender in the US bankruptcy process, editor’s note). The company expects that to happen in the February-April period.”
He again warns shareholders that they may experience severe — possibly total — relief in connection with bankruptcy.
New aviation agreements
In connection with bankruptcy proceedings in New York, SAS renegotiated leases for approximately 60 of the company’s aircraft owned by leasing companies. On January 13, the company announced that it had reached its target through renegotiation, which means that the company can save nearly 1 billion SEK in annual costs.
New documents later appeared in court papers showing that SAS clearly retained one more long-haul Airbus A350 than originally planned, and thus retained four out of six such aircraft.
But there are still important milestones to be met in order to get the all-important NOK seven billion bridging loan paid in the USA bankruptcy process – and then get court approval and new shareholders with fresh money for the whole process.
On Tuesday of this week, SAS published its revised annual report for the 2021-2022 fiscal year, which ends each fall following October. It turned out there that CEO Anko van der Werff’s salary “was not adjusted during the financial year” and bankruptcy proceedings, and that he had earned 12.5 million SEK last year.
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