AirAsia sets up new holding company for Indonesian ops

AirAsia will partially dispose of and convert its perpetual securities investments in PT Indonesia AirAsia (IAA) into new shares in a company listed on the Indonesia stock exchange.

The low-cost carrier said on Tuesday PT Rimau Multi Putra Pertama TBK (RMPP), will effectively become the new holding company of IAA, with 57.25% stake in the Indonesian carrier.

At present, AirAsia has a 49% stake in IAA, while the remaining majority stake belongs to PT Fersindo Nusaperkasa (FNP) owing to a foreign ownership cap on Indonesian airlines.

Subsequent to the exercise, AirAsia via its unit AirAsia Investment Ltd (AAIL) and FNP will own up to 48% and 49.96% equity interest in RMPP respectively.

AAIL and FNP will subscribe for the remaining unsubscribed rights shares offered in the rights Issue after allotment for an amount up to 10.4 trillion rights issue shares in exchange for IAA perpetual securities with a nominal value of 2.6 trillion rupiah.

Upon completion of the rights issue, the IAA perpetual securities will be converted into up to 241,067 newly issued common shares in IAA equivalent to 57.25% equity interest in the company.

Assuming there is full public subscription to the rights issue, AirAsia will have a 21.05% indirect stake in IAA via RMPP. In the event of no public subscription it will have a indirect 27.48% stake in the Indonesian airline.

In a separate announcement, AirAsia has proposed an internal reorganisation by exchanging the entire issued share capital of AirAsia Bhd with matching new ordinary shares in a new investment holding company called AirAsia Group Bhd.

AirAsia Group will assume the listing status of AirAsia Bhd.

Trading in AirAsia shares was suspended at 2.30pm on Tuesday for the remainder of the trading day. It was up two sen or 0.6% to RM3.33 on volume of 6.13 million shares done.