With owner in jail and parent company insolvent, Romania's low cost airline Blue Air is up for sale

Romanian low cost airline Blue Air, owned by Nelu Iordache, who is currently under arrest for embezzling funds, will be up for sale, its board recently decided. The company's board was recently changed, and Iordache was suspended from his position. The new council - Rudolf Vizental, Adrian Ionascu as deputy general manager and Elenne Philip - decided to attract a new investor, said Vizental, representative of Casa de Insolvenţă Transilvania, which is the judiciary administrator of Romstrade, Blue Air's main shareholder.

So far, six buyers have expressed interest in taking over Blue Air, a company which posted a turnover of EUR 150 million in 2011.

Romstrade hit the headlines last year when the company's owner Nelu Iordache, nicknamed “The Asphalt King”, was indicted and convicted of various offenses related to the misappropriation of some EUR 5.5 million funds. Contracts worth millions of euros were canceled. Iordache was first incarcerated at the beginning of December and the court has since extended his prison time. This came after after the Romanian National Company of Motorways and National Roads (CNADNR) served two termination notices to Romstrade, the company owned by Nelu Iordache, suddenly striking off the contractor’s expected revenue list almost EUR 54 million in road modernization and construction work. Iordache is one of Romania's richest, ranking 28th in the Forbes rich list, with an estimated wealth of some EUR 150 million. Iordache's lawyers claim the funds in question were taken in June 2011, and the request to reimburse EU funding by the European Commission was only made in October 2011. Political commentators suggest there could also be some political ties to it. Romanian company Romstrade ended 2011 with a profit of EUR 2.6 million, which was much lower than the EUR 31 million in 2009. editor@romania-insider.com