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Flying doctor
01 July 2007
When an airline needs some tender loving care, Seabury Group answers the call. Chief executive John Luth spoke to Rossa McPhillips.
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Seabury Group
South African Airways
Despite its young fleet, geographic position and 72-year history, Khaya Ngyula could see there was a problem with his airline. Poor management of suppliers and contracts had reduced South African Airways' performance, and low-cost airlines in the region threatened the airline further. Ngyula reached out to a firm that had been successful in helping airlines out of the stickiest of situations.
The Seabury Group had already successfully restructured Northwest Airlines, raised private equity for the America West-US Airways merger and advised Colombia's Avianca airline on the $63 million of exit financing from OceanAir of Brazil. As far as restructurings were concerned, Seabury was a hardened veteran, famous for being candid and honest.
As David Siegel, then US Airways chief executive officer, wrote in Airfinance Journal in June 2003: "My mentor, Gordon Bethune of Continental Airlines, taught me, 'The sickest patients need the best doctors'. So we hired the very best...
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