Malaysia-based AirAsia Bhd is considering an initial public offering for its Indian unit and seeking a partner for its services business, the carrier\u2019s group chief executive Tony Fernandes said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
This is the latest in a series of asset monetisations being undertaken by the budget airline group, which this week received shareholder nod for a reorganisation to make AirAsia Group Bhd the listed holding company for assets across Asia.<\/p>\n
AirAsia has already completed a backdoor listing of Indonesia AirAsia TBK PT and finalised a S$119.3 million ($89.38 million) joint venture for its ground-handling business with Singapore\u2019s SATS Ltd. Its Philippine unit is looking to raise up to $250 million via an IPO in mid-2018.<\/p>\n
AirAsia will seek approval at the next AirAsia India board meeting to pick a banker to start a preliminary process for an IPO, Fernandes posted on Twitter on Wednesday. While analysts are \u201cgiving zero value to AirAsia India\u201d, the unit is a \u201cvery valuable asset with huge growth potential\u201d, he said in separate tweets, adding the subsidiary \u201cwas not far from 20 planes and a potential IPO\u201d.<\/p>\n
According to Indian regulations, airlines need to have a fleet of at least 20 aircraft to fly on international routes.<\/p>\n
AirAsia India, a joint venture with India\u2019s Tata Sons conglomerate, had 14 planes at end-2017. Its revenue last year was expected to double to 12 billion rupees ($188.44 million) and climb to 18 billion rupees in 2018.<\/p>\n
The fast-growing Indian venture reported a net loss of 164 million rupees in the quarter ended September, according to AirAsia\u2019s latest accounts.<\/p>\n
\u201cAirAsia India is still incurring start-up losses and in negative equity so it is challenging to ascribe much value to the business at this point,\u201d said Corrine Png, the CEO of transport research firm Crucial Perspective.<\/p>\n
However, she said if the Indian venture grew its fleet to 20 and turned profitable, AirAsia\u2019s 49-percent stake could be worth $200 million based on listed Indian airline rivals.<\/p>\n
Fernandes said AirAsia was also in the process of appointing a banker to find a partner for its shared services centre business, AirAsia Global Shared Services, which provides accounting services and data management for its airlines.<\/p>\n
But Png said the value of that business would be insignificant, at around 1 million ringgit ($249,563.26).<\/p>\n
AirAsia said it did not have any additional information to share on the plans announced by Fernandes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Malaysia-based AirAsia Bhd is considering an initial public offering for its Indian unit and seeking a partner for its services business, the carrier\u2019s group chief executive Tony Fernandes said on Wednesday. This is the latest in a series of asset monetisations being undertaken by the budget airline group, which this week received shareholder nod for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18020,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[312],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-india"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18019"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18019\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18021,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18019\/revisions\/18021"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}