PETALING JAYA: Capital A Bhd is planning New York listings for its low-cost carrier AirAsia and its digital Super App.
This was revealed by the company’s chief executive officer Tony Fernandes in an interview with the Financial Times.
“If you want to be an actor, you’re probably going to want to end up in Hollywood at some stage in your career.
“We think the time is right for these subsidiaries of Capital A to be listed in the United States,” he said.
He said the company, which was previously known as AirAsia Group Bhd, began compliance work towards having two separate listings, one for AirAsia “sometime next year”, followed by the Super App, which offers services, such as e-hailing and food delivery.
According to the report, Capital A, which previously considered merging its digital businesses with a special purpose acquisition company, crashed into the red during the Covid-19 pandemic, prompting questions about its ability to survive.
Fernandes, who pivoted to e-commerce and digital businesses during the pandemic, said the issue had now been resolved.
Aside from AirAsia and the Super App, Capital A also owns fintech business BigPay and logistics firm Teleport.
While Capital A’s shares remain under Practice Note 17 (PN17) on Bursa Malaysia, which denotes a company in financial distress, Fernandes insisted that was a solvable “accounting” issue, which “doesn’t reflect the fundamentals of the company”.
He said that the airline business was getting back on track with 85 of AirAsia’s 212 aircraft now flying, and having an 80-90% load factor. He expected a total of 176 aircraft back in the skies by December.
“I’m quite confident of 2023 being profitable and definitely cash flow positive,” he added.
Fernandes also said he saw the 100 superfast, drone-like electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) air taxis, which the group is leasing from Ireland-based Avolon, enhancing the positive trend.
Avolon hopes to get regulatory clearance by 2025 for its eVTOLs air taxis.