Overview
The company never made a profit. At the end of March 2009, it had negative equity with liabilities two times higher than assets. Shares fell from its IPO level of 6 euro per share to a mere 20 cents per share at the end of January 2009.[33] On 30 September 2008, SkyEurope had overdue debt one million EUR on social insurance of its employees.[34] The overdue debt gradually increased to €3.1 million at the end of June 2009.[35] At 31 March, SkyEurope was in technical default on its loan from Bank of Scotland.[36]
According to released Preliminary results for FY 2008, "material uncertainties exist regarding the ability of SkyEurope Holding to continue as going concern".[37] The company failed to publish audited results for financial year 2008 on 30 January 2009, management stated it expected the statements to be published by 17 February 2009 at the latest.[38] On 17 February, SkyEurope announced further postponement, its management expected the audited results to be published by 15 March.[39] On 15 March, SkyEurope announced a third postponement, its management expected the audited results for FY 2008 to be published by 15 April.[40]
In June 2009, in an effort to avoid bankruptcy, SkyEurope announced a restructuring of the company and received bankruptcy protection from the Slovak courts (valid in the whole European Union). However, this failed and on 1 September 2009, the airline went into bankruptcy. In March 2010 liabilities were estimated up to 180 million Euro and assets less than 6 million Euro (including 0,5 million of cash).[41]
Before the IPO, the largest shareholders were East Capital funds (16.72), EBRD (16.03), Christian Mandl (8.53), Peter Struhár (8.31), Alain Skowronek (8.19), DWS funds (7.79), GLG funds (7.17), Griffin funds (7.04), Euroventures Danube (6.68) and Foundation (6.39). Other investors held the remaining 7.15 share.[42]
Management
The company's last CEO (acting) was Nick Manoudakis, who replaced Jason Bitter. Members of the Supervisory board were its Chairman Iordanis Karatzas (since 1 October 2006), Jeremy Blank (since 1 October 2006), Christophe Aurand (since 1 October 2006, works as CEO of York UK Advisors), Hans Källenius (re-elected 30 March 2007, represents minority shareholders) and Josef In-Albon (since 30 March 2007).[43]
