US aviation experts join consortium to revive Ansett By Virginia Marsh in Sydney Published: December 17 2001 12:42 | Last Updated: December 17 2001 14:30 Two of the best known names in US aviation have joined the consortium that hopes to revive Ansett, the Australian carrier that collapsed in September. Tesna, the consortium that is buying Ansett in a deal worth A$3.6bn (US$1.87bn), said on Monday that Air Partners would take a minority stake in the carrier and help run it. Air Partners III Australia is headed by David Bonderman, chairman of Ryanair, the Irish budget airline, and Bill Franke, who until August was chairman of America West, a US regional airline. Both have earned reputations as aviation industry turnaround specialists. Mr Bonderman, the co-founder and chief executive of Texas-Pacific Group, the private equity outfit, is also a director of Continental, the US airline he helped rescue in 1992. He subsequently played a similar role at America West with Mr Franke. In 1997, Mr Bonderman took a small stake in low-cost carrier Ryanair, which has now established itself as Europe's largest low-cost airline. "Air Partners will contribute human resources, intellectual and financial capital and an international network of industry relationships to Ansett," said Lindsay Fox and Solomon Lew, the Melbourne millionaires behind Tesna. Tesna said the terms of the deal with Air Partners were confidential but that Mr Fox and Mr Lew would become co-chairmen of Ansett on January 31, when the takeover was due to complete, and would share management control with the US group. Tesna has agreed to take on about a quarter of Ansett's 16,000 staff and to fund a new fleet of 29 Airbus aircraft. Ansett, formerly owned by Air New Zealand, collapsed after a price war erupted in the domestic market following the establishment of two no frills carriers including Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Blue. It also had maintenance problems and suffered from under-investment in its fleet. Virgin Blue, which has expanded to take advantage of Ansett's demise, had also hoped to buy parts of the failed carrier but the Tesna proposal was preferred by Andersen, the airline's administrators.