Air India-Vistara Merger: Tata Group wants to merge Vistara with Air India, so that a strong aviation company can emerge in the international market as well as the domestic market…
Tata Group’s aviation company Vistara is going to be closed in the next few months. Tata Group wants to merge Vistara with another aviation company Air India. After CCI, this merger proposal has now got the green signal from NCLT as well.
The way for merger is cleared
The Chandigarh Bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Thursday gave its approval to the deal. NCLT has approved the merger of the network, employees and fleet of aircraft of both the aviation companies of the Tata Group. With this, a major obstacle in the way of Vistara’s merger with Air India has been removed.
Competition Commission has already approved
Earlier, this merger proposal has been approved by the Competition Commission of India i.e. CCI last year. CCI approved this merger in September 2023. The merger has also been approved by the Competition Regulator of Singapore. It gave its approval to the deal in March this year.
This is the plan of Tata Group
Vistara started its commercial operations about 9 years ago in January 2015. Vistara is currently considered one of the leading aviation companies of India. After acquiring Air India from the government, the Tata Group had prepared a proposal to merge Vistara with it. The group wants to merge the two aviation companies and create a strong company in the domestic and international aviation market.
The proposal to merge Vistara with Air India was first made public in November 2022. After getting the approval of NCLT after CCI, now this process is expected to speed up. Tata Group plans to complete this deal in the next 9 months. That is, in the next 9 months, Vistara’s independent operations will stop and it will become a part of Air India.
This is how it will be a part after the merger
Vistara is currently registered as a company under the name of Tata SIA Airlines Limited. Tata Sons Private Limited has a 51 percent stake in the company. The remaining 49 percent stake is held by Singapore Airlines Limited. According to the merger proposal, the Tata Group will have 74.9 percent stake in the new company that will emerge, while Singapore Airlines will have 25.1 percent stake.
