Cargonews Asia, 22 Jun 2009
Essentially, there are three obstacles to any SIA involvement in China Eastern. The first is the regulatory regime that makes investing in a mainland state-owned entity so exciting. The second is that as China's weakest carrier, it would be an insanely high-risk investment to buy into an airline on its knees in a market that has collapsed.
But even in the unlikely event that SIA revives its bid for a 24 percent stake in China Eastern - as was casually suggested by Singapore supremo Lee Kuan Yew recently - it still won't have a majority share. Only if the Shanghai carrier hands over the complete management reins to SIA will the deal be "compatible with success", as a Yankee consultant would say.
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