BackJet plans to revive share sale, Goyal may divest 10% stake
Jet plans to revive share sale, Goyal may divest 10% stake
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Mumbai/ Singapore: Jet Airways (India) Ltd, the nation’s biggest domestic airline by passengers carried, plans to go ahead with its plan to sell shares to existing stockholders, raising funds to pay for new planes.
Naresh Goyal, the airline’s chairman, declined to give details of the sale while speaking to reporters in Mumbai on Thursday. Goyal, who owns 80% of the firm, will sell up to a 10% stake in the carrier, he said. Jet Airways had earlier planned to sell as much as $400 million (Rs1,600 crore) of shares in the rights offer.
Jet Airways, whose shares have fallen 46% this year, needs to raise funds to partly pay for new aircraft it has ordered from Airbus SAS andBoeing Co. in the past three years. The Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensitive Index is among the world’s 10 worst performers this year in US dollar terms, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
Jet Airways has been planning to raise $800 million since April 2006 to help fund aircraft purchases. It raised Rs1,900 crore in an initial public offering in February 2005, selling shares at Rs1,100 apiece.
Jet Airways shares closed down more than 2% at Rs538.20 on the Bombay Stock Exchange, whose benchmark Sensex rose 0.5% to 15,832.55 points.
Jet Airways, which reported a net loss of Rs91.1 crore in the three months ended 31 December, expects to turn profitable in one year, Goyal said on Thursday. The airline expects revenue of $4 billion in the fiscal year that began on 1 April.
The airline aims to increase capacity by 10-12% annually, Sudheer Raghavan, Jet Airways head of commercial operations, said.
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