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It could be true... BHP to acquire world’s listed airlines

Analysis

BHP Billiton has launched a hostile takeover of the entire listed airline industry. The announcement was contained in a footnote at the mining giant's recent AGM. When questioned on the sidelines about the transaction, a spokesman for BHP, I. Ron Steele, advised that the decision to buy all 90-odd listed airlines in the world was an afterthought and would not have a major impact on the company's core strategy. "This is a relatively minor transaction for us," said Mr Steele, before adding: "No, we have no intention of entering the airline business."

Senior analyst Saul D Mysole, of Fatbank, which engineered the deal and will be receiving its modest standard 15% commission, said: "The move was a logical one. BHP's market cap is USD258 billion and the entire airline industry's listed value is only USD200 billion. So it is not a big deal for BHP really. The key to the transaction is that this way, the company can get its hands on vastly more debt than it could ever dream of otherwise. Nowhere else can a company make a regular return on investment of less than 1% and borrow the amount of money these suckers can. The airlines obviously have some special magic. And BHP wants in."

Summary
  • BHP Billiton has launched a hostile takeover of the entire listed airline industry, despite claiming it is a minor transaction for the mining company.
  • The move allows BHP to access more debt and take advantage of the airline industry's ability to make a regular return on investment.
  • British Prime Minister David Cameron announces plans to build quite-fast trains instead of encouraging aviation, citing funding challenges and opposition from environmental groups.
  • Pilots' unions express concerns about the presence of extensive materials in clouds due to cloud computing, threatening to shut down the global airline industry.
  • Media baron Roland McMurdo resigns following charges of unlawful newspaper packing in the News of the Air World, with allegations emerging after politicians discovered they could criticize him without confessing their own secrets.
  • McMurdo denies knowledge of the offenses and vows to restore faith in his empire, continuing to bully politicians, royalty, and celebrities.

BHP's core business is digging holes in the ground. In Feb-2011, the company announced it made a profit of USD10.5 billion for the first six months of its financial year. The full-year profit is expected to be more than USD22 billion. A spokesman for the airline industry burst into tears when he heard the news. "I am so excited," he said. "I've always wanted to work in an unregulated industry for a company that digs stuff out of the ground then puts it on ships and actually makes money. I've always felt there was a missing ingredient in the airline model."

Britain to build lots of quite-fast trains, one day

BRITISH PRIME MINISTER DAVID CAMERON HAS ANNOUNCED THAT, INSTEAD OF ENCOURAGING AVIATION, his government will build lots of fairly quick trains "as soon as we can".

"We are working on funding for them and will announce details as soon as we can think of something. I know my mum has some savings in a plastic bag in the back of her freezer and we are holding talks with some jolly nice Scottish bankers who say they'll lend us as much as we need if we let them have their bonuses back," said Mr Cameron.

The new trains, which look really good in the pictures released for comment this week, are expected to travel between London and Glasgow in just over 15 minutes. Mr Cameron was addressing a conference last week on transport dreaming, against a background of supporters chanting, "Steel wheels good, contrails bad."

Quite-fast trains have become a central plank of Britain's transport dreaming policy. Mr Cameron said: "They take a long time to build and so we don't have to commit to delivering anything during the current government's term. In the meantime, the Greens and those silly Liberal Dems won't allow us to say anything about more aeroplanes, so drawing up plans and launching studies is an easy way out. Once we've had another election and we can start making sensible decisions again, we will get serious. No, definitely not. I certainly didn't say that. I was quoted out of context."

Asked about plans to build a trans- Atlantic quite-fast train tunnel, the PM confirmed negotiations were under way with a consortium of former Lehman Brothers experts. "The tunnel will go straight into Heathrow Airport, so we can maintain the airport's hub role and we won't need another runway. That would be far too costly," said Mr Cameron.

Pilots worried about hard lumps in clouds; strike action looms

PILOTS' UNIONS ARE THREATENING TO SHUT DOWN THE GLOBAL AIRLINE INDUSTRY over concerns about extensive materials now being found in some meteorological conditions, as cloud computing spreads.

"This uncontrolled explosion of cloud computing means that some clouds - and there is no way of knowing which ones - are getting filled up with chatter and all sorts of emails, video clips, blogs and other stuff. So we are flying blind into them, never knowing when there are hard lumps of stuff in there," said Captain Ivor Bit-Missing, head of the self-appointed cloud strike committee. "You never know when someone will accidentally have left a pile of post-it notes lying around in there, or even a photocopy machine. Ingesting them at high altitude would be disastrous."

Announcing plans urgently to convene a strike vote to protest this unregulated new phenomenon, Captain Bit-Missing said he expected overwhelming support for industrial action. "Unless we are adequately rewarded for undertaking the additional risk associated with these conditions, we shall have no option but to keep aircraft on the ground," he said, shortly before he jetted out to his country estate in Monaco.

Not to be left out, Spain's air traffic controllers - who last year were awarded 50% salary increases to ensure they would continue to earn twice as much as the Spanish Prime Minister and his cabinet combined-announced that they would endorse the pilots' action, when they voted to strike. Senior controller, Manuel Labour, contacted on holiday in Aspen, said he was sure he was expressing the feelings of all of his colleagues that "if there is a new reason to strike for more money, we will find a way to support our pilot brothers. We cannot permit the safety standards we have built up over 50 years to be eroded simply because we aren't paid even more. Condominiums in Aspen are outrageously expensive with the Euro where it is today."

Pilots have financial concerns over cloud computing.

News of the Air World chief to quit following packing charges

MEDIA BARON ROLAND MCMURDO RESIGNED YESTERDAY, following charges that staff on one of his newspapers unlawfully packed too many trashy stories into editions of the News of the Air World. The 97-year old executive chairman of Air Screws Ltd said he was standing down in the interests of the company, to buy a Greek airline and to spend more time with his grown-up children.

Allegations of the illegal newspaper packing emerged when important politicians in the UK discovered that they could now say nasty things about Lord McMurdo and get away with it without having to confess they were homosexual. For many years they had been unaware of the offences. Speaking yesterday, a UK Prime Minister who declined to be named said: "I had no previous knowledge of these serious packing charges and, in reality, I probably don't even know about them now. But if I had or did, I can assure everyone that I would be extremely sorry if it upset anyone. I can say no more than that, several times."

Baron McMurdo said he had certainly known nothing about any of what had been happening in his newspapers, let alone any suggestions of impropriety such as serial packing, but that he was undoubtedly the right person now to restore faith in his empire and to recommence bullying politicians, royalty and innocent celebrities, especially when they had it coming to them. "Just because I am executive chairman of the organisation doesn't mean I know anything about what is going on in it. I'm far too busy and powerful to worry about silly little people who happen to be newsworthy," he reportedly told a packed media conference.

President McMurdo, who is an American but was born somewhere else that prefers to remain anonymous, was later quoted as saying that previous reports of what he had said were scurrilous misquotations and ask thathisprivacyberespected.

This collection of "It could be true..." items comes from the light-hearted closing pages of CAPA's boardroom strategy journal, Airline Leader. CAPA is running a series of these items over the New Year holiday. For more quirky news - real and fake - see CAPA's funny blog Birdstrike.

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