TAP - a logical request
All,
Please find our updated analysis here.
It is no news that the start of 2021 has been slower than expected for airlines and it is in that context that we see the urgent request made by the Portuguese government to make an interims injection of a near E500m into TAP while the EC is considering its options.
Investment case:
- We continue to like the bonds and are looking for prices to possibly drop slightly (and slowly?) on the news of that request.
- While we model a return to profitability, no investment case today can rest on fundamental airline recovery.
- The Portuguese restructuring law is not written to handle a case like TAP. It would be practically impossible to restructure TAP in any way other than a 363-type asset sale to a newco. However, TAP is far more important to Portugal than Norwegian Air is to Norway. So such a threat would carry little weight.
- Portugal’s upside from such a restructuring would be all of E575m - the value of the bonds - peanuts in the context.
- The SUNs are implicitly government guaranteed - a particularity of Portuguese law. So even if TAP were sent into insolvency, Portugal may find itself having to compensate bondholders - a worse outcome than leaving them untouched for now.
Wolfgang
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E: wfelix@sarria.co.uk
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