AAV’s Liquidity Nearly Hits Bottom, Losing Hope on Getting Soft Loan from Thai Gov’t

AAV expects to borrow the bank and/or increase its capital to buoy the liquidity, otherwise the current liquidity could only support the company until March 2021. Meanwhile, the company stated hopes for a soft loan from the government are very dim to almost non existing. Furthermore, the resurgence of the coronavirus outbreak affected AAV’s operation severely.

 

Mr. Tassapon Bijleveld, Executive Chairman of Asia Aviation Public Company Limited (AAV), revealed that AAV, currently, has a borrowing plan and/or raise AAV’s capital within 1-2 months as the current liquidity of AAV could only last until this upcoming March, and regarding the soft loan requested since May 2020 from the Government to support for employee payment, there has been no progress despite airline entrepreneurs have reduce a loan from 24 billion baht to 14 billion baht. 

 

He also stated that if AAV successfully received loans from any financial institutions or accomplished the company’s capital raising plan, it would be unnecessary for employment downsizing. On the other hand, if the aforesaid plans failed, AAV would have to take some job cuts.    

 

With the resurgence of Covid-19 in Thailand, AAV has to reduce the number of flights due to lower passengers during the 4Q20, moreover, AAV may have to delay the resumption of international flights until January 2022. 

 

The share price of AAV in the morning session on Jan 13, 2020, closed at ฿2.40/share, a decrease of ฿0.08/share or 3.23% with a total trading value of 127 million baht. 

 

Meanwhile, the parent company AirAsia Group Berhad headquartered in Malaysia has reported a net loss of MYR3,205 million (approx. US$792 million) for the nine-month period in 2020 as the impact of the Covid 19 pandemic continued to affect the Group’s operations adversely.