Tiger Airways

Tiger Airways: Could see some negative sentiments after Australia’s competition (ACCC) regulators announced that it may scupper Tigers' bid to sell its majority control in Tiger Australia to Virgin Australia. The ACCC expressed reservations about the planned A$35m sale of a 60% stake in Tiger Australia to VA, describing the Virgin-Tiger merger as complicated. ACCC note that if the merger proceeds, Virgin will be in a much better position to take on Jetstar by using Tiger, but on the other hand, it will be taking out the third player in our aviation market to do that, so there's a very complex equation there to weigh up. UOB Kay Hian note that it would be very unfortunate if the deal does not go through, adding that for all this talk about a duopoly, one has to realise that the Aus market has in fact been a duopoly with Qantas and VA carving it up 60:30 respectively. VA taking over Tiger and Skywest will only change this by about 3% which will not impact that really have on the Australian consumer. Tiger group CEO remains confident that the deal remains on track and is confident that the regulators will be absolutely objective in evaluating the benefits of this merger to the domestic aviation market and Australian consumers.