Apollo is a behemoth firm with deep pockets. Owns a lot of airplanes; underwriting part of United's fleet:
Apollo Global Management has bought part of a USD2 billion one-year loan arranged by a group of banks aimed at helping United Airlines (UA, Chicago O'Hare) boost liquidity amid the coronavirus crisis, sources familiar with the matter told Bloomberg. The loan, which closed in mid-March, is one of...
www.ch-aviation.com
They bought SY in 2018, IPO three years later. At it's high point the valuation was about 10x what they paid. Also, CEO and Apollo dumped loads of shares while employees who bought shares were still locked in (very nice of them. Apparently they can do that.)
Normally what Apollo does is buy companies that they believe they can turn for a profit in something like 5 years. They aren't a long-term firm. For us it was less. Depending on when they think they will get the most value, that figure can obviously float around.
Suffice to say they (Apollo and Jude) are a Machiavellian, greedy type of firm. Atlas pilots are scarcely a number on a page to them. That's the reality of what we lived through. Having said that, we made out very well because of it. In our case, we were not a profitable airline, in large part because we leased almost all of our aircraft. Apollo's pockets were deep enough that we were able to purchase loads of airplanes, and grow and grow. Through that we managed to be the only profitable passenger airline in the world during COVID* and we have experienced and continue to experience fleet and pilot growth. We are probably the only national carrier where direct-hire captain is teetering on the edge of being a possibility, at this point(?) Anyway, the success, Machiavellian as it were, ended up being very good for our pilot group.
What would they do with Atlas if the purchase goes through? I have no idea. For us it was roughly 5 years to flip or IPO, and because of the market at the time it ended up being a very profitable IPO. Does that fact that Apollo and Amazon still own a big chunk of SNCY have anything to do with this? Regardless, welcome to the Apollo/Amazon capitalism club. Buckle up.
*thanks to the help of cargo and stimulus money, but some people still really like saying it, because they can
seekingalpha.com
