October 25 (SeeNews) - Ridgecrest, an AIM-listed cash shell, said on Monday that it has terminated negotiations on its proposed reverse takeover of Romanian low-cost carrier Blue Air.
The decision is a consequence of Blue Air's inability to raise the pre-reverse takeover funding, which was was the principal condition of the non-binding heads of agreement between Ridgecrest and Blue Air's vendors announced in July, Ridgecrest said in a press release.
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"The Board of Ridgecrest has concluded that it is in the Company's shareholders' best interests to pursue an alternative transaction. The Company anticipates being able to make a further announcement regarding an alternative transaction in the near future," Ridgecrest said.
On July 6, Ridgecrest announced that it has entered into a non-binding heads of agreement for a reverse takeover of Blue Air.
Under the proposed deal, Ridgecrest would acquire Airline Invest and its wholly owned subsidiaries, Blue Air Aviation and Blue Air Technic, it said at the time.
Airline Invest has two shareholders, entrepreneur Cristian Rada and his brother. The consideration payable in respect of the potential deal was proposed to be satisfied entirely by the issue to Cristian Rada and his brother of 9,022,495,560 new ordinary shares in the company comprising, immediately thereafter, approximately 95% of the company's current issued share capital. It was also intended that the company would carry out an appropriate share consolidation and/or share subdivision simultaneously with completion of the proposed deal. Upon completion of the transaction, Ridgecrest's name would have been changed to Blue Air Group plc.
Bucharest-headquartered Blue Air has its base at Henri Coanda International Airport and operations at Italy's Turin airport. It is reportedly the largest Romanian airline by scheduled passengers flown, having carried more than 32 million passengers in its 16 years of operation, according to Ridgecrest.