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Mahathir favours Japan Airlines investment in Malaysia’s flag carrier
August 16th 2019
Qatar Airways has submitted bid? Read More »
Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad favours Japan Airlines (JAL) taking over Malaysia Airlines (MAS), reports the Financial Times (FT). Mahathir’s reckoning is the Japanese airline is suitable because it has been through bankruptcy restructuring. JAL and MAS have a pending joint venture for the Japan-Malaysia market. To date there has been no comment from JAL about an investment in MAS.
Qatar Airways has already submitted a takeover proposal, the FT said.
Mahathir wants the MAS brand to be retained. This request should be relatively acceptable as JAL and Qatar have multi-brand experience. Globally, no cross-border airline investment has seen a brand disappear (not so for domestic consolidation). Perhaps contentiously, Mahathir wants to avoid layoffs among MAS’s 13,000 employees.
Mahathir chairs Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah, which has injected RM24bn (US$5.8 billion) into MAS since 2011.
“All strategic options to steer Malaysia Airlines towards financial sustainability are being evaluated and will subsequently be presented to the board of Khazanah Nasional for a decision,” Khazanah managing director Shahril Ridza Ridzuan told the FT.
Singapore Airlines has signed an Memorandum of Understanding with MAS for various areas of cooperation, but has said equity investment was not a consideration.
