Condor approached by potential new owners
CONDOR Ferries has been approached by potential new owners, its chief executive has confirmed.
The fund which currently owns Condor, Macquarie European Investment Fund 2, was a closed-ended fund and its term finished in May.
The Australia-based financial group, which manages the fund, stated its intention earlier this year to sell Condor in the next 18 months.
Condor’s chief executive Paul Luxon confirmed yesterday that approaches had been made, but stressed that the operator’s focus was purely on its ferry services.
‘Condor is a Guernsey-based company so any change in shareholding remains separate from the board and management running of the business. Our shareholder will decide on its ownership term and timing of any sale process,’ he said.
‘The investment fund in which Condor sits had a 10-year term when created in May 2006 and was extended by two years in 2008, so continues without change or implication beyond May 2018. A sale process will be entered into as the few remaining fund assets are divested.
‘Separately, Macquarie has recently received some incoming interest from infrastructure investment parties following a transaction last summer of a similar ferry operator asset on the south coast.
‘For us, in the meantime it is simply business as usual. As we enter the busiest time of the year we are focused on linking the UK, the Channel Islands and France across the three strands of essential freight, resident and visitor travel.’
Economic Development president Charles Parkinson was asked about the company’s anticipated sale in the States in February.
He said at the time that he had received assurances from Condor that the change in ownership would not cause disruption to the company’s day-to-day operations.
Although one option open to Macquarie was to liquidate Condor by selling off its assets, Deputy Parkinson insisted that it would be in Macquarie’s interests for Condor to be sold as a trading concern.
