Onlookers reckon Cyrus Capital has the aviation and financial smarts to outdo most of the major investment banks but wanted an adviser that could navigate Australia’s restructuring laws and help with forecasts and the like.
Cyrus Capital is emerging as one of the stories of the Virgin auction. It has already seen off more fancied and better-known rivals including BGH Capital which is home to Australia’s biggest buyout fund, Canadian giant Brookfield and American strategic Indigo Partners and bedfellow Oaktree Capital Management.
Stephen Freidheim, Cyrus Capital Partners founder. Getty
As Street Talk revealed a week ago, Cyrus Capital had put its band of aviation dealmakers back together to have a crack at Virgin Australia. Its bid team, as presented to Virgin’s administrator Deloitte and bankers Morgan Stanley, included firm founder Stephen Freidheim who, as Chanticleer pointed out one week ago, is a member of Wall Streets elite and the creator of what was Och-Ziff’s distressed debt arm.
Freidheim had called in fellow Cyrus partner John Rapaport, who is also chief investment officer at Keyframe Capital Partners and was a director of Virgin America for eight years, and ex Virgin Group North America CEO Jonathan Peachey.
Jones Day’s partner-in-charge of Australia and Japan, Chris Ahern, was overseeing the legal team.
Of course, should Cyrus Capital emerge as the bidder most likely, it’ll be time to talk more broadly to investment banks who may be able to help with funding. In the meantime, however, it’s said to be pretty happy with its tight-knit group that now includes McGrathNicol.
Other firms still involved in the auction include administrator Deloitte and its advisers Morgan Stanley, Houlihan Lokey and Clayton Utz; Goldman Sachs, KordaMentha and Herbert Smith Freehills (Bain Capital); Jefferies Australia (QIC/Queensland); Boston Consulting Group (NSW); and Lazard (federal government).
Everyone else is watching to see whether Cyrus Capital and/or Bain can pull off a miracle.