PARIS (Reuters) – French-Dutch carrier Air France-KLM has started talks with Apollo Global Management regarding the potential financing of a new unit which will hold the trademark and most of the group’s commercial partner contracts of its fidelity programme, it said on Thursday.
The potential financing amounts to 1.5 billion euros ($1.65 billion), Air France-KLM said in a statement, adding the deal “would enable Air France-KLM to further strengthen its balance sheet”.
Earlier this month, the airline announced it had signed a similar, definitive agreement with the U.S. private equity firm for a 500 million euro capital injection for one of its engineering and maintenance units.
($1 = 0.9096 euro)
(Reporting by Tassilo Hummel; editing by Jonathan Oatis)