“From our point of view, giving up the reverse takeover is not a failure, but only the elimination of a tactical option to accelerate the listing. Following the market testing phase, it turned out that the reverse takeover would bring too much complexity given the situation of Blue Air and the aviation market – so we decided to list directly.
The London Alternative Market Schedule (“AIM”) has not changed – we have only given up the reverse takeover of Ridgecrest Ltd. for technical reasons. Our target date for listing remained the beginning of next year, ideally in March 2022, so that we already have audited financial statements for the year ended September 30, 2021 and we can complete in good condition the Prospectus and all pre-listing and promotion procedures of the Offer.
In addition, we expect that by then Romania will significantly recover the vaccination gap compared to other European countries, and passenger air traffic will resume after the pandemic wave this winter, so that we have an attractive offer not only in terms of of Blue Air performance, but also in terms of market potential.
We are already in talks with several anchor investors, very interested in this listing, and last week a first ‘road show’ took place in London with both them and the brokerage company selected to organize the listing. Final listing decision vs. private equity vs. strategic investor we will take in December 2021, together with the representatives of the Romanian state, depending on the financial situation of the company, the results of the audit on September 30, 2021 and the process of attracting investors (ongoing) and after the comparative analysis of the 3 variants of capital attraction and the strategic options of the Romanian State regarding the 75% of Blue Air shares currently pledged in favor of the Ministry of Finance for guaranteeing the state guarantee issued in favor of Blue Air in October 2020 as state aid “, said Oana Petrescu – CEO blue Air.
