Aer Lingus has been launched on the Dublin and London stock exchanges and will be listed from today (Monday 2 October). Ryanair CEO Michael O'Leary raised the question last week "who is the national airline of Ireland?" He noted that his airline was substantially larger than the hitherto government-owned carrier.
His argument is strong. The listing will raise gross proceeds of ”501.8m ($636.8m) for Aer Lingus, which it will use towards a ”2bn ($2.54bn) fleet expansion plan and a one-off ”104m ($132m) payment to help reduce the airline's pension deficit. The IPO was 3.8 times oversubscribed according to the financial advisers.
The Irish government still retains around 30% of the airline, just under 10% by an employees trust, 40% by institutional investors and the balance by the public plus current and former staff.
Image source: ” Ryanair