AirAsia (AK, Kuala Lumpur International) parent Capital A is planning to list both the airline and its Super App digital venture on the New York Stock Exchange, the group’s chief executive Tony Fernandes has told the Financial Times in an interview.
“If you want to be an actor, you’re probably going to want to end up in Hollywood at some stage in your career. We think the time is right for these subsidiaries of Capital A to be listed in the United States,” he said.
The company has begun its compliance work for the two separate listings, he added, and the airline’s initial public offering (IPO) could take place “sometime next year,” followed afterwards by the app, which specialises in vehicle e-hailing and food delivery.
As fundraising efforts continued last year at Capital A (formerly AirAsia Group), Fernandes commented how the severely Covid-struck group had “used the downtime in flying to review every aspect of our airline operations” and had “also transformed into a digital travel and lifestyle services group which isn’t solely reliant on airfares alone.” In July, he said the group was considering raising USD300 million or more by listing its digital businesses, also including fintech firm BigPay, in the United States via a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC).
Fernandes told the Financial Times that issues on how to approach the listings had now been resolved. Although Capital A’s shares remain under Practice Note 17 (PN17) “financial distress” status at the Bursa Malaysia stock exchange, this is merely an “accounting” matter that “doesn’t reflect the fundamentals of the company.”
“I’m quite confident of 2023 being profitable and definitely cash-flow positive,” he elaborated, a trend he said was exemplified by AirAsia’s immediate parent entity AirAsia Aviation Group inking a non-binding memorandum of understanding with Avolon earlier this year for at least 100 VX4 eVTOL (electric take-off and landing) flying taxis.
The airline business is steadily resuming, Fernandes said, with 85 of AirAsia’s 212 aircraft across the group (also including AirAsia X, AirAsia India, Indonesia AirAsia, AirAsia Philippines, and Thai AirAsia) now active with an average load factor of 80-90%. He expected 176 aircraft to be in operation by the end of the year.
