After more than 14 months under the protection of insolvency law, the Condor vacation airline has to assert itself again as an independent company on the market. “On Tuesday at midnight, the Condor insolvency proceedings will be history. Then Condor will be a completely normal company again,” said lawyer Lucas Flöther, who had supervised the Condor board as trustee, on Monday the Reuters news agency.
But the crisis for Condor is far from over. Because the company with its 4,200 employees does not have a new owner after the bankruptcy of the British parent company Thomas Cook. The parent company of the Polish airline LOT dropped out as a buyer in the corona crisis in April.
“Until they are sold on, the shares are held by a restructuring company that belongs to a law firm,” explained Flöther. However, the risk is not borne by the trustees from the law firm Noerr, but de facto by the state bank KfW, which has pumped 550 million euros in the form of a mass loan into Condor in the protective shield proceedings. Now she can only hope that the later sale will bring in more so as not to have to write off part of the loan. For comparison: The Poles were awarded the contract for a good 300 million euros. A new attempt is not in sight anytime soon, as CEO Ralf Teckentrup had made clear. He does not expect a new owner until 2022 at the earliest.
Flöther agrees with him. “Now is definitely not the best time to sell an airline. I don’t think that should happen in spring either. But there is no more rush now.” With the money, Condor will be financed well into 2021. Teckentrup drives Condor on an extreme low flame, keeps the company afloat with cargo flights and short-time work until the holiday business picks up again. “In the course of the next year, like all other airlines, the company will have to get some air under its wings again,” said Flöther. “A corona vaccine would certainly help.”
ROLE MODEL FOR LUFTHANSA?
The company made history with the renovation, says Flöther. “Condor is the first German airline to be reorganized via an insolvency plan – and probably the first large company that needed two insolvency plans at the same time.” While US airlines are repeatedly restructuring themselves through bankruptcy proceedings, bankruptcy in Germany is still considered a stigma. “I think such cases contribute to a new culture of restructuring in Germany,” believes Flöther. Even Lufthansa flirted with a similar process in the struggle for help in the corona crisis. In order not to unsettle the customers, Condor never used the word “insolvency” itself, but always spoke of a “protective shield”, even though the protective shield proceedings resulted in bankruptcy after three months.
The first, already approved insolvency plan failed because LOT withdrew, while the second left a quota of 0.1 percent of their claims for the creditors. “But there was no alternative,” says the administrator. The most important creditors included the pension insurance association (PSV), which is responsible for the company pensions and was granted a share in the subsequent sales proceeds, and the Federal Employment Agency, which pre-finances the bankruptcy money. The reason for the low quota was that the flight daughter also had to be held liable for bonds from Thomas Cook, so that their bondholders could file claims against Condor.
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