Khazanah factor in AirAsia X listing

GEORGE TOWN: The timing of AirAsia X Sdn Bhd's listing on the stock market hinges on various factors, including Khazanah Nasional Berhad's offer to purchase a stake in the company.

The company's independent and non-executive chairman Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz yesterday said that work on the initial public offering is ongoing and no timeframe has been fixed as yet.

"We also want to evaluate Khazanah's offer to purchase, once all processes are completed," she said in a text message reply, when asked if Khazanah's proposal which was announced in August to acquire 10 per cent of shares in AirAsia X, was delaying the listing plan.

The long-haul arm of Malaysian budget carrier, AirAsia, which initially announced it would list its shares by 2012, had recently said that it has put the plan on hold.

AirAsia X chief executive officer Azlan Osman Rani had said in a television interview last month that the listing was on hold, pending a potential stake sale to Khazanah.

On the status of AirAsia X's request to the government for the green light to add Sydney Airport as its fourth Australian destination following Perth, Melbourne and the Gold Coast, Rafidah said:

"We are busy preparing for the other routes first and we will prepare for Sydney when we get it."

She however, did not disclose the other routes except to add "we will announce the routes in good time."

Earlier, Rafidah had delivered a keynote address during the "Quantity Surveying International Convention 2011."

Present were Deputy Works Minister Datuk Yong Khoon Seng and Universiti Sains Malaysia vice-chancellor Datuk Professor Omar Osman.

In her address, Rafidah touched on how green and sustainability agendas have been politicised and turned into political capital.

"Today, sustainability has emerged as an important factor in international trade as more consumers, especially in the developed economies are demanding that products which enter their markets have undergone production processes which have in turn, met prescribed standards and regimes, all in the context of care, preservation of the environment, human welfare and the environment," said Rafidah.