By BERNAMA / Pic TMR

AIRASIA Group Bhd has revised several important dates for its rights issue of RM978.51 million redeemable convertible unsecured Islamic debt securities (RCUIDS) with free warrants following the declaration of a public holiday for all federal territories on Dec 3, 2021. 

The low-cost airline said trading for the rights would start from Dec 6, 2021, instead of Dec 3 as scheduled earlier. 

The prospectus and provisional allotment letter of offer, meanwhile, will be despatched on Dec 7, 2021, instead of the day before, it said in a filing with Bursa Malaysia today. 

AirAsia also changed the last day and time for acceptance, renunciation and payment to Dec 20 from Dec 17 as well as for the rights cessation quotation to Dec 13 from Dec 10.

The last dates for sale and transfer of provisional allotments will be Dec 14 and Dec 20, respectively, compared to Dec 13 and Dec 17 previously. 

The entitlement date — Dec 2, 2021 — remains unchanged. 

To recap, the budget airline had on July 12, 2021, proposed to undertake a renounceable rights issue of up to RM1.024 billion in nominal value of seven-year RCUIDS with a nominal value of 75 sen each on the basis of two RCUIDS with one free detachable warrant for every six shares held. 

In October, the Securities Commission and Bursa Securities approved the rights issue as well as the issuance of up to 1.37 million RCUIDS and up to 682.71 million warrants. 

However, as AirAsia has decided not to place out the remaining 198.18 million placement shares before the entitlement date, the maximum issue size of the RCUIDS and warrants have reduced accordingly. 

In an abridged prospectus to the stock exchange today, AirAsia said the exercise, entailing the issuance of 1.3 billion RCUIDS and 649.68 million warrants, was expected to raise about RM974.5 million. 

It said the proceeds would be utilised, among others, for fuel hedging settlement, aircraft lease and maintenance payments, general working capital, expenses in relation to the rights issue and for AirAsia Digital Sdn Bhd’s business units.