Flybe set for take off with £200m float imminent

FLYBE is revving up the propellers for a stock market listing that is expected to value Britain's biggest domestic airline at about £200 million. A formal announcement is expected by the end of this week.

Analysts believe the carrier, run by Berwickshire-born chief executive Jim French, wants a float partly to amass a warchest for expansion, including the possible acquisition of two rivals.

It is understood the company and its advisers have run the rule over Flybaboo, a Swiss regional airline based in Geneva, and a Finnish carrier.

Flybe's directors gave the green light to the listing plan at a board meeting on Friday. Sources say only an outbreak of turbulence in financial markets will derail the company's intention to put an "intention to float" announcement out to the London Stock Exchange imminently.

Flybe was once owned by the late Lancashire steel magnate Sir Jack Walker, who also helped finance Blackburn Rovers' English premiership league win in the mid-1990s.

While the Flybe brand is eight years old, the airline has traded under different names for 20 years. It was set up as Jersey European Airways and then became British European Airways.

Despite losing 21m during the ash cloud crisis, Flybe is one of the few European carriers to report profits this year - pre-tax profits before exceptionals of 6.8m on sales of 570.5 million in the year to end-March.

More than two-thirds of the shares in the airline are owned by the Walker family trust, but it is not expected to sell any stock in the flotation.

British Airways owns 15 per cent, which it acquired when Flybe bought BA's loss-making regional airline BA Connect. French owns 7 per cent while the airline's staff own the remainder.

A spokesman for Flybe declined to comment on what he called "rumour and speculation".