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Today's News , 2003
• UP to Spin Off Overnite, Motor Cargo DHL Airways Now ASTAR Air Cargo  Reprint permission
The sale of DHL Airways to an investor group led by Chairman and CEO John Dasburg is complete. The Miami-based company, which announced the $57 million saleÕs completion after the close of markets on Monday, is now called ASTAR Air Cargo. Company officials had set a target closing date of June 30, postponing it once for unstated reasons. In addition to Dasburg, the former president and CEO of Northwest Airlines and chairman, CEO and president of Burger King, two other investors now jointly own the airline. Richard C. Blum is chairman of San Francisco-based Blum Capital Partners, L.P., and Michael R. Klein is a Washington, D.C.,-based business executive and lawyer. He is a partner at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering, a Washington-based international law firm. Both Blum and Klein serve on a variety of corporate boards. The trio, known collectively as BD Air Partners, secured financing through the Boeing Capital Corporation. Concurrent with announcing the saleÕs completion, ASTAR announced it intends to buy or lease at least 10 Boeing 727-100 aircraft from a Boeing Capital affiliate. The airline already leases four planes from the lessor. ASTAR, like DHL Airways, will fly primarily for DHL Worldwide Express, a fully owned subsidiary of Germany-based Deutsche Post World Net. "It is great day for ASTAR Air Cargo," Dasburg said in a statement. "We are pleased to expand our partnerships with two of the most respected companies in the world, and we believe that these key customer and vendor relationships will provide significant benefits for all involved." The Dasburg group bought the company from Idaho resident William Robinson, who had 55 percent equity and 75 percent of the voting rights in DHL Airways, and from DHL Holdings, a Delaware-incorporated wholly owned subsidiary of Deutsche Post World Net. When he became CEO, Dasburg assumed a 5 percent ownership stake in the airline. The ownership change comes as the discovery period winds down in a case pending before a U.S. Department of Transportation administrative law judge regarding the corporate citizenship of DHL Airways. DOT Chief Administrative Law Judge Ronnie A. Yoder has emphasized that the review he is conducting is focusing on the "current" ownership status of the airline and that the sale, while related, will not impede or change that review. The DOT review comes at the request of competitors United Parcel Service and FedEx, who contend the airline is effectively controlled by foreign interests Ð namely Deutsche Post -- and that the latest change in ownership does nothing to alter that fact. Discovery in that case ends on Friday, and a hearing is scheduled for Aug. 19. Yoder then has until Oct. 31 to issue his recommendation about ASTARÕs citizenship to DOT officials.
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