Airline moving in the right direction, says Khazanah MD

by **Cals** Sat 15 Jun 2013, 14:54

Airline moving in the right direction, says Khazanah MD
By DANIEL KHOO
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[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]Azman: ‘I think they will be the first to admit they are not yet there. But we are glad the rights issuance went well.’
KUALA LUMPUR: [url=http://archives.thestar.com.my/search/?q=Khazanah Nasional Bhd]Khazanah Nasional Bh[/url] expects financial and operations matters at [url=http://archives.thestar.com.my/search/?q=Malaysia Airlines (MAS)]Malaysia Airlines (MAS)[/url] to be fully resolved within three years.
Khazanah [url=http://archives.thestar.com.my/search/?q=Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar]managing director Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar[/url] said the three-year period was agreed upon by both itself and national airline.
Khazanah is the majority shareholder of MAS.
“I do believe MAS is moving in the right direction if you ask me,” Azman said at an Invest Malaysia 2013 press conference yesterday.
He noted that MAS was “not totally out of the woods” yet but added certain aspects of its financial numbers have improved.
“I think they (the management at MAS) will be the first to admit they are not yet there. But we are glad the rights issuance went well,” he said.
MAS reported at the end of last month that its net loss for the first quarter ended March 31 had widened to RM278.8mil from RM171.8mil year-on-year.
The company, however, noted in its statement that operation loss has reduced by 46% to RM165mil from RM307mil.
Meanwhile, Azman neither confirmed nor denied a Bloomberg report that it would soon launch an initial public offering of its theme park businesses.
“I cannot confirm (the news) but the framework moving forward (longer term) is that generally we like them listed so that other matters such as funding will be easier but what is most important is their operations now,” he explained.