Jet Airways gets new suitor in South America's Synergy Group

South American conglomerate Synergy Group Corp has become the latest to show interest in investing in troubled carrier Jet Airways. Synergy Group, which owns a majority stake in Colombian carrier Avianca Holdings, has submitted its Expression of Interest (EoI) for Jet Airways, reported Economic Times. 

It is to be seen if the lenders would accept the new interest as it was submitted much later after the August 10 deadline. Resolution professional running the bidding process, Ashish Chhawchharia of Grant Thornton, will seek approval from the committee of Jet’s creditors to include Synergy in the race on Monday. Interestingly, the resolution professional had not released the final list of prospective bidders by the August 21 deadline.

Industry observers are wary that the South American Group could be interested only in the assets of Jet Airways and not the airline as a whole, reported Moneycontrol.com. Avianca, Latin America’s second-largest airline after Chilean carrier LATAM Airlines, is itself a loss-making entity. It is itself being restructured, including a change in management team, a phaseout of aircraft and network optimisation. Hence, its interest in Jet would be limited to assets such as aircraft and airport slots.

Avianca Holdings was formed in 2010 via the merger of Colombia’s Avianca and El Salvador’s TACA Airlines. 

Initially, Jet Airways had evinced interest from three potential suitors—Anil Agarwal's family trust-backed Volcan Investments, Russian Fund Treasury RA Partners and Panama-based investment firm Avantulo Group. However, Volcan withdrew a day later, and Avantulo was not shortlisted for the next round of bidding, leaving the Russian fund as the only selected entity.