Ownership History
Virgin Blue was formed in 2000 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Virgin Group.
In 2001 the then Air New Zealand owned Ansett Australia made a buyout offer of $250 million which, was publicly rejected by Richard Branson.
In 2002 Virgin came to an agreement with Patrick Corporation to invest in the airline, to allow it to grow into a national airline, filling the void left by the demise of Ansett Australia.
In return for a 50% share of the company, Patrick invested A$260 million. At the time, the view was that Patrick's shareholding would also allow the company to benefit from their new shareholders political connections with the Howard Government, and also 'Greenwash' the company, allowing it to be described as Australian-owned.
In 2003 Virgin Blue Holdings Limited was floated on the Australian Securities Exchange as Virgin Group sought to sell down its holdings.
Patrick Corporation was later taken over and merged into Toll Holdings in 2006, who continued the partnership and ownership of shares in Virgin Blue Holdings. In 2008 the group announced a plan to distribute 98.3% of its shares in the company to its shareholders, thus making itself no longer a majority stakeholder. At the time Toll Holdings owned 62.7% of the company and had previously attempted to sell the share to no avail.
On 20 January 2011, Air New Zealand purchased 14.99% of shares in Virgin Blue Holdings Ltd, paying A$145 million (NZ$188.9 Million).
On 30 October 2012, Virgin Australia announced it had purchased a 60% stake in Tiger Airways Australia for $35 million. Tiger would continue to operate as a low cost subsidiary of Virgin Australia for 20 years.
Read more about this topic: Virgin Australia Holdings
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