SAS climbing to new heights

As per July 6, 2001 the whole of SAS is grouped under one Swedish holding named SAS AB. One seventh (14.3%) of this holding is owned by both the states of Denmark and Norway, Sweden owns one and a half sevenths (21.4%). The remaining 50% are in private hands. This ownership split is the same as within the former structure where SAS Danmark A/S, SAS Norge ASA and SAS Sverige AB - each of them being held 50-50 by the respective state and private investors - owned two sevenths and three sevenths respectively of the SAS Consortium. So why this change if everything remains the same? «We are now more transparent and thus more interesting for investors,» says Vagn Sцrensen, executive vice president airline commercial of SAS Group. «The old structure with three different SAS shares were too complicated, especially so for international investors. And we needed four board meetings - one for each national holding and one for the consortium - to approve things like our quarterly results for example.» «We want to make our share the 3rd most traded one among European airlines' shares - after Lufthansa and British Airways but ahead of KLM, Swissair, Air France and Alitalia,» Sцrensen continues. At present trading of SAS shares is between those of Air France and Alitalia. Since 1st June 2001 SAS Cargo is operating as an independent company.