24 May 2012

AirAsia's 49% owned Thai AirAsia to list on Thailand Stock Exchange by end of this month, initial public offering (IPO) price has been set at 3.7 baht (37 sen) a share

(AIRASIA opening stock price today (24.5.2012) was RM 3.39)

The offer price for Thai AirAsia's initial public offering (IPO) has been set at 3.7 baht (37 sen) a share, said its major shareholder Asia Aviation Pcl, as the Thai affiliate of AirAsia Bhd prepares for a listing at the end of this month.

A total of 1.2 billion shares would be offered to investors during the subscription period from May 23 to May 25 for trading on the Stock Exchange of Thailand soon, Asia Aviation said in a statement.

Of the total public offering, 750 million are new shares and 462.5 million shares from existing shareholders, bringing the public float to 25% of its paid-up capital.

Reuters reported last week that the IPO, expected on May 31, would raise 4.5 billion baht (RM450mil).

Asia Aviation CEO Tassapon Bijleveld said the company planned to use part of the IPO proceeds to buy new shares in Thai AirAsia, which will raise its stake to 55% from 51% currently.

Subsequently, the equity held by AirAsia International, AirAsia's wholly-owned unit, would be pared down to 45% from 49%.

“Thai AirAsia aims to be the low-cost airline with the largest market share.

“Our strength is our cost control, which makes us the airline with the lowest operating cost while the service quality remains intact,” Bijleveld said.

“We offer the highest flight frequency for domestic and international routes that take less than four hours of flying.

“Today, we are ready to offer our shares to the public and will be listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand.

“This is another crucial step that will stabilise Thai AirAsia's financial status and allow the company to march forward to its planned goal.

“We aim to grow at least 20% to 25% from 2011.

“This will be supported by our new fleet, new route plans and flight frequency increase on potential routes.”

Thai AirAsia will also utilise its listing funds to double its Airbus A320 fleet size to 48 aircrafts by 2016, as well as for working capital and operations.

The airline had reportedly said that some 1.5 billion baht (RM150mil) would be used to finance the purchase of new aircraft in the near term, and it hoped to add five to six new aircraft annually for the next five years.

The financial advisor for the IPO, Thanachart Securities Pcl, also said the listing had drawn an overwhelming response from local and overseas investors, as evident in the oversubscription of the shares by 10 times.

Thanachart Securities and CIMB Securities (Thailand) are the co-lead underwriters for the domestic market while ten other brokerages are acting as co-underwriters including Maybank Kim Eng Securities (Thailand) Plc and UOB Kay Hian Securities (Thailand) Plc.

Analysts have noted that the listings of Thai AirAsia, Indonesia AirAsia and AirAsia X may be re-rating catalysts for AirAsia shares.

Source: www.thestar.com.my

1 comment:

  1. Yes, once again it looks like that world is in recession, every market of although its stock market or commodity market is going down, the values of Indian currency is going down every day. Although this is the worse time in stocks but this is the time for investment that helps to make good profit in the future from this market.

    ReplyDelete