Virgin Australia advises completion of 35% sale of Velocity Frequent Flyer to Affinity Equity

Virgin Australia advised (22-Oct-2014) the transaction for Affinity Equity Partners to acquire a 35% minority stake in the Velocity Frequent Flyer programme has been successfully completed. Virgin Australia maintains a majority stake in Velocity and majority representation on the yet to be announced Velocity Frequent Flyer board, including the appointment of chair and 65% of voting rights. Velocity Frequent Flyer CEO Neil Thompson said: "This partnership will allow us to accelerate our strategy to become a world class loyalty business. We are on track to achieve our target of 7 million members by 2017 under the new Virgin Vision three year strategy and next year Velocity Frequent Flyer will enter its tenth year in the Australian market. This strategic investment by Affinity will allow us to deliver new innovation to our members including unique rewards and benefits at a faster rate." Mr Thompson continued: "As we continue our plans to rapidly grow the programme, we look forward to announcing more news to our members in the coming months." As previously reported by CAPA, Affinity Equity Partners is acquiring the 35% stake for AUD336 million (USD294.2 million), valuing the programme at AUD960 million (USD840.7 million). Virgin Australia plans to run Velocity as an independent business, although CEO John Borghetti said members will not see a change in how the programme is run. [more - original PR]