01-July-2020:  Another capital raising announced by WEB today:  WEBJET ANNOUNCES EURO 100 MILLION CONVERTIBLE NOTES OFFERING

And the SP went up +7.5% on the back of that.  FLT (Flight Centre) also announced today they were accepting assistance via a loan from the Bank of England under the UK's COVID-19 support arrangements for business, and FLT were also up today (+3.15%).  Further strengthening of company balance sheets is generally seen as a positive in this new environment.

21-Apr-2020:  Impact of Virgin Airways Administration

Webjet Limited (Webjet) notes the announcement today by Virgin Australia Holdings Limited (Virgin) that it has appointed a voluntary administrator.  Webjet has enjoyed a strong long-term relationship with Virgin and sees it occupying a vital position within the ongoing Australasian travel landscape.

Notwithstanding its relationship, Webjet does not have a material financial exposure to Virgin should an administrator restructure the airline or elect to cease trading.  Webjet books airfares on behalf of its customers as agent and is not the provider of the service. Webjet is working closely with its customers and on their behalf to process refunds/credits directly with all airlines who are no longer able to honour prepaid tickets, including Virgin.

While the travel industry will be impacted by Covid-19 for some time, Webjet considers that it will emerge with a strong competitive position given the diversity of geographic markets in which it operates, its diverse product offers and its capital position following the recent capital raise. 

01-Apr-2020:  Webjet (WEB) have released a number of announcements this afternoon with the main 3 being:

WEBJET ANNOUNCES A $275 MILLION EQUITY RAISING

Webjet Equity Raise Investor Presentation

Update - Dividend/Distribution - WEB

So, the dividend has been deferred for 6 months until October 15, they are raising $275m at $1.70/share, a LONG way below the $3.76 they last traded at before the trading halt and suspension, and a very long way below the $13.72 they closed at on Feb 19th (around 6 weeks ago).  

The headline details of the capital raising are that they are undertaking an institutional placement and an accelerated pro-rata, non-renounceable (1 for 1) entitlement offer to raise a minimum of $275 million via: 

• A fully underwritten institutional placement to raise $101 million, and
• A partially underwritten entitlement offer to raise a minimum of $174 million and a maximum of $231 million.

As correctly suggested by @AUROPAL (see Webjet forum), the delay appears to have centred around the underwriting of the retail component of the raising, which has ended up only being partially underwritten.  In other words, the first $101m (the institutional placement) is locked in, but whether they raise the full remaining $174m (of the $275m) is very much up to ordinary retail investors and how much more money they want to pour into WEB - at a price (of $1.70) that is 87.6% below their Feb high of $13.72.

Macquarie Bank (MQG) became substantial holders of WEB shares during the trading suspension, suggesting they were involved in organising this raising for WEB.  Macquarie also organised the "rescue raising" for RCR last year, also at a huge discount to their last traded price, and of course that didn't stop RCR from going into Administration shortly afterwards anyway - with investors that had hung in there until the end losing 100% of their money.  Not sure how much exposure Macquarie managed to retain through to when RCR management called in the Administrators (before their lenders did), but I would image MQG had managed to offload their shares before then.  It will be interesting to see what Macquarie do with their WEB shares now.  If they retain them, that's likely a positive.  If they quickly sell them after the capital raising has been completed, I would see that as a negative.  Because they are substantial holders, any sells of 1% or more must be reported via an announcement to WEB which the ASX will publish.

The 1:1 (1 for 1) entitlement offer means that current WEB shareholders (that were on the books before they went into the trading halt and suspension) will be entitled to buy one WEB share (at $1.70) for every one WEB share they already own.  Considering that WEB have announced that they are prepared to extend the retail component by an additional $57m from the proposed $174m up to a max of $231m - which seems a little optimistic to me - I would think it HIGHLY likely that existing shareholders will ALSO be given the opportunity to apply for additional shares (at the same $1.70 price) that would be from the pool of shares not taken up by other shareholders as part of the entitlement offer.

I guess the main questions shareholders need to ask are:

1. Will WEB survive from here?  I would think that if they can raise at least the minimum $174m from the retail component (the entitlement offer) of the raising, then they have a pretty good chance of surviving, but that will obviously depend of how soon global travel and tourism gets back to normal from here.
2. If they are going to survive, what is their intrinsic value now, and how much of a discount to that intrinsic value does this $1.70 price represent?

I don't hold any WEB shares, so I won't be spending too much time on those questions myself, but considering I did hold shares in RCR when something very similar happened to them, I would be thinking carefully about the answers to those questions if I did hold WEB shares.

20-Mar-2020:  WEB are still suspended from trading, pending the details of their capital raising, which Marcus Padley in his daily newsletter is calling a "rescue raising".  Today, we learn that UBS has now become owners of 5.78% of WEB (on Tues March 17) and it appears that the vast majority of their position is for the purposes of "Securities Lending Agreements", which usually means they're providing stock to shorters.  Appendices A, A1 & B have all of the details.  Apart from the Prime Brokerage Agreement with TIGA (Thorney Investment Group Australia), there are Securities Lending Agreements with 9 different entities.  And I would imagine that UBS weren't the only ones getting set to capitalise on such an opportunity - in terms of shorting stocks like WEB.  If the shorters are wrong, it could be a great buying opportunity, but so far they've been right.  You can read today's announcement here.

19-Mar-2020:  We knew that some companies would go to the wall in this environment, and we know that travel agents are on the frontline of this.  WEB are in a trading halt this morning pending a capital raising announcement.  They were already down -72.9% (from $13.72 to $3.76) in the past month, and I don't think a cap raising was priced in even at that level, so they're going lower.  FLT is down -25.6% just today as I type this, and that means they're down -71.8% in the past month.  As I wrote in a "Bear Case" straw for FLT (Flight Centre) last night, FLT have debt (as do WEB, but FLT have more than WEB) and they're directly in the firing line, or at the coalface of this as far as the market is concerned, so they're an obvious short.  So are WEB.  Because WEB are a reasonably capital-light business, being a purely online business, with much lower overheads (fixed costs) than a company like FLT, it makes you wonder why they NEED to raise capital when they've already had their SP smashed so much (-73%).  I imagine it is to do with trying to avoid breaching their debt/lending covenants.  That's an educated guess rather than a statement of fact, but it makes sense to me, unless they're looking to buy distressed assets (M&A).  The details will emerge soon enough.