COURT DENIES SABENA BANKRUPTCY PROTECTION
Attempts to start a successor to Sabena Airlines, Belgium’s failed national airline, failed when a commercial court refused to extend bankruptcy protection to Sabena’s former in-house bank.
Investors had hoped a Belgian court would offer protection for Sabena Interservice Center, the former in-house bank of Sabena, under a plan to erase debts owed to it by a former Sabena subsidiary, Delta Air Transport.
Investors wanted the bank’s creditors to waive about half of the $96 million owed by DAT to Sabena, and the remainder would have been swapped for a stake in the airline. DAT then would have been developed as a successor to Sabena, which collapsed last month.