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Virgin Atlantic Airways is drawing up plans for a fresh £400m funding injection as prospects fade for an initial public offering (IPO) of Sir Richard Branson’s flagship company.

Sky News has learnt that the transatlantic carrier is in talks with its shareholders and other financial stakeholders about raising additional capital to see it through the traditionally quieter winter months.

City sources said the amount being sought by Virgin Atlantic’s management was still being finalised, but would inevitably involve Sir Richard contributing another chunk of his fortune to the pandemic-battered airline.

It is expected to be announced by the end of the year.

This week, the Virgin Group tycoon sold $300m of stock in New York-listed Virgin Galactic – bringing the total he has raised from selling shares in the space tourism business during the pandemic to more than $1bn.

Virgin Atlantic has been helped by the recent resumption of flights between the UK and US – the most profitable part of its business – but is braced for a difficult winter amid oil price volatility and other inflationary pressures.

Synchronised flights leave Heathrow
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The double take-off from Heathrow

Earlier this month, it staged a joint take-off from Heathrow with British Airways, a rare sign of collaboration between the bitter rivals, to mark the restart of flights to New York’s John F Kennedy airport.

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Virgin Atlantic lost more than £650m last year as the COVID-19 crisis decimated the global aviation industry, and it expects to have made a further substantial loss in 2021.

Sky News revealed in August that Sir Richard was plotting a surprise listing on the London Stock Exchange as it pinned its hopes on a glut of demand for transatlantic travel.

However, despite positive talks with institutional investors, the need to return to normalised trading patterns has prompted them to shelve the plan indefinitely.

A significant improvement in the airline’s financial performance could yet pave the way for it to be revived, although that is unlikely for at least a year, according to one fund manager who held discussions with the company.

An IPO would have marked the first time since Virgin Atlantic’s launch in 1984 that it has sold shares to the public – and would almost certainly see Sir Richard relinquish overall control of the business.

Virgin Atlantic has sought several rounds of funding since the start of the pandemic, the most notable of which was a £1.2bn solvent rescue package in September last year which included £200m from Sir Richard, a loan from the American hedge fund Davidson Kempner Capital Management, and substantial contributions from creditors.

It has also landed hundreds of millions of pounds more – in multiple instalments – from the sale of several Dreamliner aircraft and a further loan from Virgin Group.

The latest financial injection includes payment deferrals and other creditor assistance as well as cash, according to a City source.

Virgin Atlantic, which is majority-owned by Sir Richard’s Virgin Group, was forced to place administrators on standby last year as the pandemic-induced crisis deepened.

Delta Air Lines owns the remaining 49%, with the company having scrapped a deal in late 2019 that would have seen Air France-KLM acquiring a 31% shareholding from Sir Richard.

Virgin Atlantic has nearly halved its workforce since the start of the pandemic – a move that has helped to drive significant longer-term cost savings.

A Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747-400, with Tail Number G-VROC, lands at San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco
A Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747-400, with Tail Number G-VROC, lands at San Francisco International Airport, San Francisco, California, April 16, 2015. REUTERS/Louis Nastro
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The company has been cushioned by Virgin Galactic’s stock price

The airline is not the only part of Sir Richard’s business empire which has felt the pressure of the pandemic.

The UK arm of Virgin Active also came close to collapse after putting a restructuring deal to landlords, lenders and shareholders.

His Virgin Voyages cruise operation finally embarked on its maiden journey during the summer after more than a year of setbacks.

Nevertheless, the billionaire tycoon has been cushioned by Virgin Galactic’s stock price.

A Virgin Group spokesperson said this week that the latest sale would allow him to support his “portfolio of global leisure, holiday and travel businesses that continue to be affected by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, in addition to supporting the development and growth of new and existing businesses”.

In July, Sir Richard flew aboard a Virgin Galactic trip to the edge of space, days before his even-wealthier rival, the Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, did the same on a Blue Origin vehicle.

Sir Richard is now taking Virgin Orbit – the commercial satellite launch group – public through a merger with a US-listed special purpose acquisition company (SPAC).

A Virgin Atlantic spokesman said the airline did not comment on speculation.

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Chair candidates battle to check in at Premier Inn-owner Whitbread

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Chair candidates battle to check in at Premier Inn-owner Whitbread

Two chairs of FTSE-100 companies are vying to succeed Adam Crozier at the top of Whitbread, the London-listed group behind the Premier Inn hotel chain.

Sky News has learnt that Christine Hodgson, who chairs water company Severn Trent, and Andrew Martin, chair of the testing and inspection group Intertek, are the leading contenders for the Whitbread job.

Mr Crozier, who has chaired the leisure group since 2018, is expected to step down later this year.

The search, which has been taking place for several months, is expected to conclude in the coming weeks, according to one City source.

Ms Hodgson has some experience of the leisure industry, having served on the board of Ladbrokes Coral Group until 2017, while Mr Martin was a senior executive at the contract caterer Compass Group and finance chief at the travel agent First Choice Holidays.

Under Mr Crozier’s stewardship, Whitbread has been radically reshaped, selling its Costa Coffee subsidiary to The Coca-Cola Company in 2019 for nearly £4bn.

The company has also seen off an activist campaign spearheaded by Elliott Advisers, while Mr Crozier orchestrated the appointment of Dominic Paul, its chief executive, following Alison Brittain’s retirement.

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It said last year that it sees potential to grow the network from 86,000 UK bedrooms to 125,000 over the next decade or so.

Mr Crozier is one of Britain’s most seasoned boardroom figures, and now chairs BT Group and Kantar, the market research and data business backed by Bain Capital and WPP Group.

He previously ran the Football Association, ITV and – in between – Royal Mail Group.

On Friday, shares in Whitbread closed at £25.41, giving the company a market capitalisation of about £4.5bn.

Whitbread declined to comment this weekend.

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Bank chiefs to Reeves: Ditch ring-fencing to boost UK economy

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Bank chiefs to Reeves: Ditch ring-fencing to boost UK economy

The bosses of four of Britain’s biggest banks are secretly urging the chancellor to ditch the most significant regulatory change imposed after the 2008 financial crisis, warning her its continued imposition is inhibiting UK economic growth.

Sky News has obtained an explosive letter sent this week by the chief executives of HSBC Holdings, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest Group and Santander UK in which they argue that bank ring-fencing “is not only a drag on banks’ ability to support business and the economy, but is now redundant”.

The CEOs’ letter represents an unprecedented intervention by most of the UK’s major lenders to abolish a reform which cost them billions of pounds to implement and which was designed to make the banking system safer by separating groups’ high street retail operations from their riskier wholesale and investment banking activities.

Their request to Rachel Reeves, the chancellor, to abandon ring-fencing 15 years after it was conceived will be seen as a direct challenge to the government to take drastic action to support the economy during a period when it is forcing economic regulators to scrap red tape.

It will, however, ignite controversy among those who believe that ditching the UK’s most radical post-crisis reform risks exacerbating the consequences of any future banking industry meltdown.

In their letter to the chancellor, the quartet of bank chiefs told Ms Reeves that: “With global economic headwinds, it is crucial that, in support of its Industrial Strategy, the government’s Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy removes unnecessary constraints on the ability of UK banks to support businesses across the economy and sends the clearest possible signal to investors in the UK of your commitment to reform.

“While we welcomed the recent technical adjustments to the ring-fencing regime, we believe it is now imperative to go further.

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“Removing the ring-fencing regime is, we believe, among the most significant steps the government could take to ensure the prudential framework maximises the banking sector’s ability to support UK businesses and promote economic growth.”

Work on the letter is said to have been led by HSBC, whose new chief executive, Georges Elhedery, is among the signatories.

His counterparts at Lloyds, Charlie Nunn; NatWest’s Paul Thwaite; and Mike Regnier, who runs Santander UK, also signed it.

While Mr Thwaite in particular has been public in questioning the continued need for ring-fencing, the letter – sent on Tuesday – is the first time that such a collective argument has been put so forcefully.

The only notable absentee from the signatories is CS Venkatakrishnan, the Barclays chief executive, although he has publicly said in the past that ring-fencing is not a major financial headache for his bank.

Other industry executives have expressed scepticism about that stance given that ring-fencing’s origination was largely viewed as being an attempt to solve the conundrum posed by Barclays’ vast investment banking operations.

The introduction of ring-fencing forced UK-based lenders with a deposit base of at least £25bn to segregate their retail and investment banking arms, supposedly making them easier to manage in the event that one part of the business faced insolvency.

Banks spent billions of pounds designing and setting up their ring-fenced entities, with separate boards of directors appointed to each division.

More recently, the Treasury has moved to increase the deposit threshold from £25bn to £35bn, amid pressure from a number of faster-growing banks.

Sam Woods, the current chief executive of the main banking regulator, the Prudential Regulation Authority, was involved in formulating proposals published by the Sir John Vickers-led Independent Commission on Banking in 2011.

Legislation to establish ring-fencing was passed in the Financial Services Reform (Banking) Act 2013, and the regime came into effect in 2019.

In addition to ring-fencing, banks were forced to substantially increase the amount and quality of capital they held as a risk buffer, while they were also instructed to create so-called ‘living wills’ in the event that they ran into financial trouble.

The chancellor has repeatedly spoken of the need to regulate for growth rather than risk – a phrase the four banks hope will now persuade her to abandon ring-fencing.

Britain is the only major economy to have adopted such an approach to regulating its banking industry – a fact which the four bank chiefs say is now undermining UK competitiveness.

“Ring-fencing imposes significant and often overlooked costs on businesses, including SMEs, by exposing them to banking constraints not experienced by their international competitors, making it harder for them to scale and compete,” the letter said.

“Lending decisions and pricing are distorted as the considerable liquidity trapped inside the ring-fence can only be used for limited purposes.

“Corporate customers whose financial needs become more complex as they grow larger, more sophisticated, or engage in international trade, are adversely affected given the limits on services ring-fenced banks can provide.

“Removing ring-fencing would eliminate these cliff-edge effects and allow firms to obtain the full suite of products and services from a single bank, reducing administrative costs”.

In recent months, doubts have resurfaced about the commitment of Spanish banking giant Santander to its UK operations amid complaints about the costs of regulation and supervision.

The UK’s fifth-largest high street lender held tentative conversations about a sale to either Barclays or NatWest, although they did not progress to a formal stage.

HSBC, meanwhile, is particularly restless about the impact of ring-fencing on its business, given its sprawling international footprint.

“There has been a material decline in UK wholesale banking since ring-fencing was introduced, to the detriment of British businesses and the perception of the UK as an internationally orientated economy with a global financial centre,” the letter said.

“The regime causes capital inefficiencies and traps liquidity, preventing it from being deployed efficiently across Group entities.”

The four bosses called on Ms Reeves to use this summer’s Mansion House dinner – the City’s annual set-piece event – to deliver “a clear statement of intent…to abolish ring-fencing during this Parliament”.

Doing so, they argued, would “demonstrate the government’s determination to do what it takes to promote growth and send the strongest possible signal to investors of your commitment to the City and to strengthen the UK’s position as a leading international financial centre”.

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Post Office to unveil £1.75bn banking deal with big British lenders

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Post Office to unveil £1.75bn banking deal with big British lenders

The Post Office will next week unveil a £1.75bn deal with dozens of banks which will allow their customers to continue using Britain’s biggest retail network.

Sky News has learnt the next Post Office banking framework will be launched next Wednesday, with an agreement that will deliver an additional £500m to the government-owned company.

Banking industry sources said on Friday the deal would be worth roughly £350m annually to the Post Office – an uplift from the existing £250m-a-year deal, which expires at the end of the year.

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The sources added that in return for the additional payments, the Post Office would make a range of commitments to improving the service it provides to banks’ customers who use its branches.

Banks which participate in the arrangements include Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, NatWest Group and Santander UK.

Under the Banking Framework Agreement, the 30 banks and mutuals’ customers can access the Post Office’s 11,500 branches for a range of services, including depositing and withdrawing cash.

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The service is particularly valuable to those who still rely on physical cash after a decade in which well over 6,000 bank branches have been closed across Britain.

In 2023, more than £10bn worth of cash was withdrawn over the counter and £29bn in cash was deposited over the counter, the Post Office said last year.

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A new, longer-term deal with the banks comes at a critical time for the Post Office, which is trying to secure government funding to bolster the pay of thousands of sub-postmasters.

Reliant on an annual government subsidy, the reputation of the network’s previous management team was left in tatters by the Horizon IT scandal and the wrongful conviction of hundreds of sub-postmasters.

A Post Office spokesperson declined to comment ahead of next week’s announcement.

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