Venezuela's Avensa Airlines has rejected a buy-out bid by Aeropostal in favour of a joint operations plan with Aserca.
Aeropostal proposed to take over Avensa by paying $20 million for 80% of its shares. Nelson Ramiz, chief executive of Aeropostal, claimed a merged Aeropostal-Avensa would create a strong Venezuelan airline because of their complementary routes.
But Wilmer Castro, Avensa's president, says Aeropostal's bid is "very aggressive and traumatic", and Avensa prefers to stick with its earlier plan for joint operations with Aserca, under which Avensa and Aserca will stop short of a full merger, which would jeopardise their route awards under Venezuelan law, but will jointly operate flights on routes they both own. The plan calls for relaunch of Caracas-Madrid flights in mid-June using Aserca aircraft.
Rejecting Aeropostal's offer means that Avensa must find another way to pay its debts, however.
Source: Airline Business
