AirAsia’s Tony Fernandes Keen to Split Company in Dual New York Listings

Capital A, earlier known as the AirAsia Group, is planning a public listing on the New York Stock Exchange sometime next year.

Already a public listed company on Bursa Malaysia, Capital A may seek two stock exchange listings in the U.S. — one for the airline and the other for the digital superapp, its CEO Tony Fernandes said.

AirAsia executives could not be reached for comment at publication time.

“If you want to be an actor, you’re probably going to want to end up in Hollywood at some stage in your career,” Fernandes was quoted telling the Financial Times.

While 2021 witnessed record-high levels of global initial public offerings, volatile market conditions have resulted in a significant slowdown during the first quarter of 2022. For the first quarter of 2022, the global IPO market saw 321 deals raising $54.4 billion in proceeds, a decrease of 37 percent and 51 percent year-on-year, respectively, according to Ernst & Young.

The superapp aggregates all of the company’s offerings and services, including flight and hotel bookings, food and grocery delivery, ride-hailing, parcel delivery, and more.

The AirAsia Group had been considering a listing of its digital arm through a special-purpose acquisition company in the United States to raise at least $300 million. The group has also been approached by a few SPACs.

However, last year the company had to undergo a debt restructuring scheme to avoid filing for bankruptcy. Things have now started to look up for the company and Fernandes is confident that the company would be profitable and cash-flow positive by 2023.

With the company running into financial difficult customers were only given 0.5 percent of refunds owed for flights cancelled during Covid, with the rest being given in the form of credit.

Last week, airlines across AirAsia Aviation Group reaffirmed their commitment to resolve all refund requests caused by the ongoing effects of the pandemic as soon as possible.

It claimed that it has already finalised over 99 percent of all customer refund requests and would settle the rest in the coming months.

Capital A is also embarking on the electric vertical take-off and landing air taxis market. Fernandes visited Vertical Aerospace in Bristol last week.

“This will revolutionize travel and give the common man to save time, open up new tourism, new logistic opportunities and provide more jobs,” he said about the air taxis market.