Abra still eyeing IPO when volatility clears

Abra chief executive Adrian Neuhauser says the group remains ready for listing, but that timing is not right.
Latin American airline group Abra continues to target an initial public offering (IPO), but chief executive Adrian Neuhauser says continued volatility means the timing is not yet right.

Abra, the holding company for Colombian carrier Avianca, Brazil’s Gol and which in August agreed to a share exchange with Chile’s Sky Airline, last December submitted a draft registration statement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission for an IPO.

Speaking during a session at the World Aviation Festival in Lisbon on 14 October, Neuhauser said: “There is definitely going to be an IPO, the question is when?

“Frankly from a structural standpoint, we are ready to go,” he adds. “The problem is this requires the stars to align. And in the world we are in now, with high fuel price volatility, with high interest rate volatility, and with a lot of tension in the markets, it’s probably not the right time. So we have to wait for things to settle down.”

While acknowledging “there’s never a perfect moment” to list, Neuhauser notes that the market is strong for existing stocks. Such uncertainty means it is a difficult time for new names to come to the market – underlined by recent challenges in a planned listing of Australian technology firm Firmus.

“It [timing] will never be perfect, but it certainly does feel like now is the right moment,” Neuhauser says.

Asked about a potential IPO timetable, he says: “I wish I had a crystal ball. We were ready to go at the beginning of the year, but things happened. We remain ready to go.”

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