Finally, good news for Ansett staff
A report in the Herald Sun says that Ansett workers learned yesterday that they were likely to be paid close to the full amount to which they were entitled when the airline crashed into insolvency.
Mark Korda, who administers the business affairs of the Ansett group of companies with his partner Mark Mentha, said former workers who were still owed money were expected to be paid a total of more than 90c in the dollar over the next two years.
His firm, which has charge of winding up the former carrier, began distributing its eighth dividend to 9000 former staff yesterday, with the money raised from $15.3 million worth of asset sales during the past eight months.
Mr Korda said former staff would receive about 10 per cent of their outstanding entitlements from the latest payout, adding, “It is an average of approximately $1000 per employee, with some employees receiving more than $9000,” Mr Korda said.
The eighth dividend consists of $9.3 million to former Ansett employees and $6 million to the Federal Government to repay staff entitlements previously paid under the Commonwealth SEESA scheme.
Yesterday’s distribution brings to $676.2 million the total payments made to 15,000 former staff.
BusinessDaily was told that 6000 employees had received their full entitlements.
Mr Korda said Ansett continued to sell off the spare parts inventory and the remaining assets, noting that there were still more than nine million units of inventory across 207,000 line items to be sold, as well as one property.
Further dividends would be paid over the next one to two years dependent on further asset sales, Mr Korda said.
“On average, employees will receive over 90c in the dollar of their entitlements,” he added.
Ansett Airlines collapsed in September 2001 and closed its doors for business after the last flight on March 4, 2002, ending 66 years of continuous operation.
The company, which had traded in its last year as a subsidiary of Air New Zealand, was without cash and unable to pay its workforce at the time of the collapse.
At the time Air New Zealand had sought to shut the doors of Ansett’s Melbourne headquarters and retreat across the Tasman.
Ansett, which ranked second to Qantas before it was grounded, was losing $12-$15 million a week.
At that time, prior to the launch of Jetstar, Air New Zealand offered to sell Ansett to its trans-Tasman rival Qantas for $1, which was promptly rejected.
Report by The Mole
John Alwyn-Jones
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