MAS likely to be delisted, says report
(The Malaysian Insider) – Malaysia Airlines (MAS) faces the prospects of being delisted following the second tragedy to hit the national carrier in less than five months, reports Bloomberg today.
In March, flight MH370 disappeared with 239 people on board and on Thursday, flight MH17 was shot down in eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 passengers and crew.
The two disasters were likely to end the flag carrier’s days as a publicly traded company, Bloomberg said.
MAS plans to present a revival plan to its biggest stakeholder Khazanah Nasional Bhd this week, sources told the financial portal yesterday.
The options range from privatising the company to bankruptcy, both of which involve a delisting from Bursa Malaysia.
“They don’t have the luxury of time,” Mohshin Aziz, an analyst at Maybank, was quoted as saying.
“There’s never ever been an airline that had to go through two monumental tragedies in the space of four months.”
MAS shares closed at 20 sen yesterday with Khazanah owning almost a 65% stake in it. The airline reported losses of RM443.4 million in the first quarter of the year, from a net loss of RM278.8 million in the same period last year. Losses in 2013 amounted to RM1.17 billion.
MAS blamed the Q1 loss on the missing flight MH370, which saw high numbers of cancellations and a decline in long-haul travel after the March 8 incident.
The airline responded to queries about its revival plan by saying: “Our focus during this very challenging time is to work with the emergency responders and authorities and mobilise full support to provide all possible care to the family members of those on board MH17… This is not the right time to address this question.”
In June, the country’s longest-serving prime minister said MAS should be privatised and be run by those who can work with the unions to revive its fortunes following the MH370 disaster.
