Yahoo Finance Qantas should have accepted takeover bid: Packer
Former Qantas director and casino magnate James Packer has said on radio that the struggling carrier should have accepted a takeover bid in 2006.
Speaking to Eddie McGuire on Triple M's The Hot Breakfast, the initially reluctant Mr Packer said: "With the benefit of hindsight, and hindsight is easy, I think the bid would have been good for shareholders to take back then."
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Eight years ago, a private equity consortium including Macquarie Bank and Texas Pacific Group made an $11 billion offer for the airline.
Margaret Jackson, who was chairing the Qantas board at the time, was slammed for supporting the bid, which faced strong opposition. She was eventually pushed out when the deal collapsed.
"History is going to show that from a purely economic perspective, for the shareholders at the time, Margaret was 100 per cent right," Mr Packer said.
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The national carrier's struggle continues after the Government rejected its request for a debt guarantee.
A bill to repeal the 49 per cent cap on foreign ownership has passed parliament's lower house, but faces defeat in the Senate, with both Labor and the Greens in opposition.
"Qantas is clearly a company not doing as well as it once was, and it's an important company for Australia," Mr Packer said.
