TUNE AIR CONTINUES SUPPORT FOR COLLABORATION,

REVERSES SHARE SWAP WITH KHAZANAH

 

 

KUALA LUMPUR, 2 May 2012 – Tune Air Sdn Bhd (“Tune Air”) today announced the reversal of the share swap with Khazanah Nasional Berhad (“Khazanah”) while continuing to support collaboration between AirAsia Berhad (“AirAsia), AirAsia X Sdn. Bhd. (“AirAsia X”) and Malaysia Airline System Berhad (“MAS”).

 

Tune Air Director Dato’ Kamarudin Meranun said: “We continue to believe in the ability of the collaboration to create value for all shareholders and ultimately to benefit passengers.  Furthermore, we feel that the collaboration will enable all three companies to be better prepared in facing in a more competitive environment following the implementation of the ASEAN Open Skies framework.”

 

In August 2011, a Comprehensive Collaboration Framework (“CCF”) was established to enable AirAsia, AirAsia X and MAS to explore opportunities to co-operate on a broad range of areas so as to leverage on their respective core competencies and optimise efficiencies. As part of the CCF, Tune Air and Khazanah entered into a share swap agreement to align the interests of the primary shareholders of AirAsia and MAS, thereby strengthening the potential for collaboration.

 

Dato’ Kamarudin added, "In the eight months since the CCF was launched, we have seen good progress in furthering the collaboration. Even with the unwinding of the share swap, which is to remove any distraction from ongoing efforts at the three airlines, we expect the collaboration initiatives to continue and we will do everything in our capacity as major shareholders of AirAsia to support this."

 

“Although the share swap has to be unwound, the collaboration over the past eight months has brought MAS and AirAsia closer together. Ten years of non-collaboration and unnecessary struggle between us had come to an end and we are now able to focus on our markets and core competencies,” said Kamarudin.

 

The unwinding of the share swap will see Tune Air transfer its 20.5% stake or 685,142,000 ordinary shares in MAS back to Khazanah while Khazanah will transfer its 10% stake or 277,650,600 ordinary shares in AirAsia back to Tune Air.

 

This transaction will be conducted based on the prices at the time the share swap was announced in August 2011, where MAS was valued at RM1.60 per share and AirAsia’s share at RM3.95. No cash will change hands.

 

Pursuant to this, the nominee directors of Tune Air on MAS’ Board of Directors (“Board”) and Khazanah’s nominee director on AirAsia’s Board will resign immediately.