“WE decided not to proceed with the RM500 mil club facility under Danajamin Nasional Bhd’s Prihatin Guarantee Scheme as some of the conditions imposed were unreasonable,” so said Capital A Bhd CEO Tan Sri Tony Fernandes.
“The required approvals from Bursa Malaysia were not within our control and while we did seek for the time extension to provide a regularisation plan, ultimately our application was declined.
“Anyway, Datuk Kamarudin (Meranun) and I remain committed to Capital A’s recovery having been actively involved in steering the group through this crisis day-in, day-out over the past two years,” he said, in a statement.
Yesterday, Capital A (formerly known as AirAsia Group Bhd) reported that it was unable to obtain Danajamin’s club facility as the company’s joint founders, Fernandes and Kamarudin, refused to become its guarantors.
A Bursa Malaysia filing by the company on March 10 indicated that a joint or several guarantees were required from both founders as security to Danajamin.
Both Fernandes and Kamarudin control a 24.64% stake in Capital A via Tune Air Sdn Bhd (12.41%) and Tune Live Sdn Bhd (12.23%).
Unimpressed with the “smart founders for being risk adverse” and “leaving retail investors in a lurch to fence for themselves”, share price of the low-cost airline operator dived to an intra-day low of 61.5 sen yesterday, before paring earlier losses to hover around 62.5 sen – down 3.5 sen or 5.3% – at the time of writing.
Touching on the matter, Fernandes said that both Kamarudin and he had personally injected RM257.3 mil out of the RM974.5 mil rights issue that was completed on Dec 31 last year to support the company’s turnaround plan.
He added that they were willing to provide the personal guarantees requested on top of their previous cash support through the rights issue completed on Dec 31, 2021.
Sourcing alternatives
“But a request for us to guarantee everyone’s exposure is unseemly for a public-listed company, considering we are but two among many Capital A shareholders which also includes institutional investors,” Fernandes mentioned.
With that said, the tycoon vowed to continue exploring other financing alternatives which are more suited to their operations and requirements.
“Importantly our fundraising strategy remains firmly on track to sustain operations throughout this year and support our airline recovery.
“As international borders continue to reopen in all of our key markets, we look forward to returning to pre-pandemic capacity on many of our popular domestic and international routes by the end of this year, which will lead us to profitability and deliver value to our shareholders once again in the near future,” he remarked.
On March 5, Airasia Malaysia announced that it had reintroduced fuel surcharges for all its domestic and international flights to offset rising jet fuel prices, which has breached US$120/barrel.
The fuel surcharge took effect on March 8.
“Airlines across the globe are affected by the rising oil prices, the situation in Eastern Europe and other external factors which made it imperative for us to reintroduce the fuel surcharge, despite our efforts to resist it for as long as we could,” AirAsia Malaysia CEO Riad Asmat was reported as saying back then. – March 12, 2022.
