SAS "has entered into a debtor in possession (DIP) financing credit agreement for $700 million (equivalent to approximately SEK 7 billion) with funds managed by Apollo Global Management," the carrier said in a statement. communicated.
DIP financing allows companies to obtain liquidity to continue their activities while being under the protection of bankruptcy law.
On July 5, SAS, which employs some 7,000 people, filed for bankruptcy in the United States as part of an ongoing restructuring.
In the United States, recourse to Chapter 11 is a device that allows a company that can no longer repay its debt to restructure itself protected from its creditors while continuing its current operations.
"With this financing, we will be in a strong financial position to continue to support our ongoing operations through our voluntary restructuring process in the United States," said Carsten Dilling, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the group in which the Danish and Swedish states are the main shareholders.
"We can now fully focus on accelerating the implementation of our SAS FORWARD plan," he added, quoted in the statement.
SAS had announced in February a savings plan of around 750 million euros per year, reinforced in June by a capital increase project of one billion euros.
In July, SAS suffered from a two-week pilot strike that cost the company between $9 million and $12 million a day.
The move was in protest against pay cuts demanded by management as part of the restructuring plan and against the company's decision not to rehire pilots made redundant during the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the Swedish Airline Pilots Association (SPF), 450 pilots will be rehired as part of the agreement that ended the strike.
© 2022 AFP