Silverjet throws in the towel

Bankrupt business class-only airline Silverjet on Monday conceded defeat in its battle to get back in the air, announcing it has given up on trying to find a buyer for the company.

"In the end, the investment climate has become too cautious and the economic conditions very difficult for us gain the scale we needed," Silverjet CEO Lawrence Hunt said in an emailed statement.

Earlier in the day Silverjet's administrators told Arabian Business five groups had expressed interest in reviving the airline, but that the chance of a deal being concluded was growing increasingly unlikely.

“The longer it is left, the harder it is to put back together again,” Mark Fry, joint administrator at Begbies Traynor, said in a telephone interview.

Begbies Traynor was forced to sack all 420 of Silverjet's staff on Friday after a last ditch attempt to save the bankrupt airline fell through.

Kingplace, a company managed by Swiss investment trust Heritage, had last week agreed to buy the airline, but the deal fell though due to UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) regulations requiring airlines to have enough money in reserve to guarantee operations.

Silverjet collapsed into administration last month after it failed to get an emergency $5 million loan from Abu Dhabi-based Viceroy Holdings.

One of the parties interested in buying Silverjet is planned premium class airline ArabJet, newswire Reuters reported on Monday, citing a source familiar with the talks.

Silverjet, which flew from Luton to Dubai and New York, was the last remaining business class only airline after the recent collapses of Eos and Maxjet due to challenging market conditions and a business model that analysts have questioned the viability of.

Silverjet had also struggled, failing to make an operating profit for its fiscal year ending March 31 and watching its share price nosedive from 1.50 British pounds ($1.97) last summer to 13 pence before its shares were suspended on May 23 when the Viceroy emergency loan fell through.

MORE FROM ARABIANBUSINESS.COM