KUALA LUMPUR – The Practice Note 17 (PN17) status is “irrelevant and meaningless to liquidity and business as it is no more than accounting”, said Capital A Bhd CEO Tan Sri Tony Fernandes amid concerns of its financial performance.
Fernandes told Nikkei Asia that the obsolete and merely technical error has not affected efforts to substantiate the company’s finances amid the pandemic, adding that Capital A has been revamping its business structure to ease the process of raising funds.
Despite recording a net loss of RM2.2 billion in the first nine months of 2021, he is expecting improvements in the fourth quarter of 2022.
Fernandes attributed this to pent-up demand and the gradual reopening of many international borders.
Through its new holding company structure, he said a total of RM1 billion or more is expected to be raised by Capital A this year.
Capital A has been expanding its company through several businesses such as a food delivery app and a digital wallet named Bigpay that is currently waiting for a digital banking licence in Malaysia and had just acquired an investment from SK Group, a South Korean conglomerate amounting to US$100 million (RM418.60 million) in August.
The new app that aims to challenge competitors such as Grab and GoTo was valued at US$1 billion (RM4.19 billion) last July and has just earned a private investment of RM200 million in February.
Meanwhile, Air Asia’s cargo unit created a full-service shipping and delivery business called Teleport which is valued at US$300 million (RM1.26 billion) after acquiring a Malaysian food delivery platform last year.
He has also been focused on reorganising AirAsia X, another part of his airline empire that has gone through debt restructuring after a tax write-off was done for most investments.
The company’s airline operations in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines have been increasing in capacity by 70% when they had 2.7 million passengers on board.
“I certainly do not see China opening up anytime soon, but I think the rest of the world is, which means aviation is certainly going to be better in 2023.” – The Vibes, February 25, 2022
