American Airlines’ $30 mln London town house
LONDON (Reuters) – Buried deep in American Airlines’ Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing is a striking asset — a town house in one of London’s most expensive residential streets that property experts say could be worth up to $30 million.
The five-bedroom house in London’s high-end Kensington district is a throwback to the airline’s expansion two decades ago and stands a 10 minute walk from the former home of Princess Diana, with gentry and diplomats as neighbours.
UK regulatory filings show the house has been used as a residence for senior executives, including the current chairman and chief executive Thomas Horton, since the airline bought it in the early 1990s.
Listed as “London Residence LON6526,” the five-floor house is one of eight owned properties declared by parent company AMR Corp (AMR.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) when it asked for protection from creditors on November 30, sagging under $30 billion of liabilities.
The plush residence in Cottesmore Gardens — recently named Britain’s 10th most expensive address by property firm Zoopla — could become a thorn in the airline’s side as it fights its way through bankruptcy. Corporate restructuring usually involves sacrifices by staff, retirees and creditors.
Robert Mann, an airline consultant with RW Mann & Co, who is a former fleet planning executive at AMR, said the ownership of the house is far from the biggest problem the airline is facing but added it would raise eyebrows and should probably be sold.
“As part of an overall debt-clearing exercise, yes it probably should be sold and leased back if they really want to stay there. If you can realize 17 million bucks, you ought to do it.”
Exclusive: American Airlines’ $30 million London town house
LONDON (Reuters) – Buried deep in American Airlines’ Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing is a striking asset — a town house in one of London’s most expensive residential streets that property experts say could be worth up to $30 million.
The five-bedroom house in London’s high-end Kensington district is a throwback to the airline’s expansion two decades ago and stands a 10 minute walk from the former home of Princess Diana, with gentry and diplomats as neighbors.
UK regulatory filings show the house has been used as a residence for senior executives, including the current chairman and chief executive Thomas Horton, since the airline bought it in the early 1990s.
Listed as “London Residence LON6526,” the five-floor house is one of eight owned properties declared by parent company AMR Corp (AMR.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) when it asked for protection from creditors on November 30, sagging under $30 billion of liabilities.
The plush residence in Cottesmore Gardens — recently named Britain’s 10th most expensive address by property firm Zoopla –
could become a thorn in the airline’s side as it fights its way through bankruptcy. Corporate restructuring usually involves sacrifices by staff, retirees and creditors.
Robert Mann, an airline consultant with RW Mann & Co, who is a former fleet planning executive at AMR, said the ownership of the house is far from the biggest problem the airline is facing but added it would raise eyebrows and should probably be sold.
Climate change is off the agenda in Dubai
The headline in the Gulf News English language daily reads ‘UAE tops world on per capita carbon footprint’.
For a place so reliably bathed in sunlight, the Dubai property explosion seems to have generated enough construction noise to drown out the environmental debate raging elsewhere in the world.
For the first-time visitor, the scale of the global construction superlatives – The Palm, made from reclaimed land jutting out defiantly into the Gulf, the skyscrapers built in a region where there is no shortage of space – is staggering.
The amount of environmentally ‘sinfull’ concrete poured over the last decade is ncalculable. Billboards lauding the benefits of solar power look like a bit of an after thought.
Climate change was just beginning to take hold as an issue for property developers when the economic downturn struck and put paid to nascent environmental ambitions. “Green is not cheap,” says Markus Giebel, chief executive of Dubai property group Deyaar Development. “Dubai was on the right track, but there’s no money now. People are thinking about survival.”
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