AF-KLM acquires large stake in SAS

On 3 October 2023, SAS announced that it has accepted a bid by a consortium of AF-KLM and investment company Castlelake. Once the bid is approved and finalised, Castlelake is set to become SAS's largest shareholder with almost 33% of the shares, while AF-KLM is obtaining 19,9% of the shares.

Although the stake in SAS is non-controlling, AF-KLM and SAS will enter a commercial cooperation. Part of this deal is that SAS is set to leave the Star Alliance and switch to SkyTeam. It is also expected that SAS will join the trans-atlantic venture that AF-KLM has with Delta and Virgin Atlantic.

SAS is currently undergoing a (financial) restructuring and was looking for new capital to strenghten its position. As part of this process, it asked potential investors for bids.

The SAS Group's fleet currently stands at a total of 129 aircraft, spread between SAS (93 aircraft), SAS Link (ten aircraft), and SAS Connect (25 aircraft).

Photo by SAS.