Originally Posted by
Transpacificflyer
Throwing money at a foreign controlled company will hardly receive much support from the Australian public, no matter how wonderful the employees are. The people most at risk are the mainland Chinese shareholders who hold almost 40%. Seriously, how could anyone make a case to bail them out? No one will shed tears for the wealthy gang from for Singapore Airlines and Etihad if they take a haircut. Branson's plea for a bailout was soundly ridiculed by some of his wealthy peers .As Duncan Bannatyne said, let Branson put his own money in first. He can cash in some of his 4 billion pounds of assets or use it for collateral to get a bank loan if he is that passionate.
Some of the deals that were proposed pre-administration would have resulted in the current shareholders doing their money (e.g. through debt for equity swaps). The issue was more perception that money would flow to the foreign shareholders, when in fact they would basically done their money.
Anyway, doesn't matter now. The deals required a level of government support that wasn't forthcoming. Now to see what comes out of the administration process.