Budget Airline AirAsia X Runs Out of Money, Needs RM500m to Reboot: Report, Transportation



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Sat, Oct 17, 2020 – 2:33 pm

[SYDNEY] Low-cost, long-haul carrier AirAsia X Bhd has run out of money and needs to raise up to RM500 million (S $ 163.7 million) to restart the airline, Vice President Lim Kian Onn said in a newspaper interview published on Saturday .

The Malaysian airline, the long-range arm of AirAsia Group, said this month that it wanted to restructure RM63.5 billion of debt and cut its share capital by 90 percent to continue as a going concern.

“We have run out of money,” Lim told The Star newspaper.

“Obviously, banks will not finance the company without shareholders, both old and new, bringing in new capital. So a prerequisite is new capital.” It said the airline had actual liabilities of RM2 billion, with the higher of RM63.5 billion including all lease payments for the next eight to 10 years and its large order for Airbus SE aircraft and engine maintenance contracted with Rolls-Royce Holdings.

“If we find RM300 million in new shares, then the shareholders’ funds are RM300 million when we restart the business and if we can borrow RM200 million, we think we will have a good platform to start over,” he said. The star.

Lim said AirAsia X also needed to convince its lessors of its business plan, adding that an unidentified lessor recently recovered one of the airline’s jets to convert it into a freighter.

The airline plans to liquidate its small Indonesian-based airline and has fully put its stake in Thai AirAsia X on its books, and the Thai airline is not part of the restructuring plan, Lim told the newspaper.

Rival Malaysia Airlines is also in financial trouble, but Lim said there would be “no good result” if it seeks to merge two airlines in dire straits.

AirAsia X declined to comment beyond the details published in the newspaper article.

REUTERS



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