Australians rallied behind the Australia Government today, backing Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s refusal to bail out Virgin Airlines, where Singapore Airlines (SIA) owned 20%.
Prime Minister Scoot Morrison said he is not going give Australians’ money to foreign shareholders in China, Singapore, Abu Dhabi, UAE and UK.
“If we had not taken the actions that we have had and not demonstrated the patience that we have had then what we may have ended up doing is sending $1 billion to foreign shareholders.”
SIA is state-owned by Temasek Holdings, and both companies are expected to lose at least S$250 million in total capital put in in 2013.
While there has been calls for SIA to bail out Virgin Airlines, the Singapore national carrier itself is sitting on at least S$6.66 billion of debt as of September 2019. To avoid bankruptcy, SIA recently on March 30th took a S$15 billion bailout from the Singapore government through Temasek Holdings, headed by Lee Hsien Loong’s wife.
SIA is expected to post more losses as the Singapore government announced an one-month extension to the lockdown from May 4th to June 1st. These losses will translate to increased taxes and higher CPF retention for Singaporeans.