Japan Airlines Ltd (JAL), delisted from the Tokyo stock exchange after its bankruptcy in 2010, was set to return to Japan’s biggest bourse this week after a massive overhaul and US$8.5 billion share sale.
The carrier is to begin trading on Wednesday following its initial public offering (IPO) — the world’s second-biggest IPO this year after Facebook — marked a stunning turnaround for one of Japan’s worst corporate catastrophes.
“The re-listing is a very important milestone for us and something that we had craved, but it is also just part of our bigger goal of steady profitability,” JAL president Yoshiharu Ueki told reporters last week.
Photo: AFP
“Without being carried away by the euphoria ... we will make further efforts so that we respond to our new investors’ expectations,” he added.
JAL crashed into bankruptcy in January 2010, owing ￥2.3 trillion (US$29 billion) in one of Japan’s biggest-ever corporate failures, but continued flying while it went through a rehabilitation process under court protection.
The overhauled carrier, recently touted as the world’s most profitable airline, received a huge government bailout and other concessions, drawing howls of protest from rivals, including All Nippon Airways.
Led by charismatic businessman Kazuo Inamori, who was brought in by the government to help turn the firm around, JAL also withdrew from unprofitable routes and sold or merged non-core businesses.
Last month, JAL pointed to its improved financial health, saying net profit in the April-to-June quarter more than doubled to ￥26.9 billion.
The airline has embarked on an ambitious expansion, saying earlier this year it ordered 10 new fuel-efficient Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft as it looks to build on its recovery.
The announcement, part of a five-year plan, is in addition to an existing order for 35 of the mid-sized planes capable of flying long-range routes.
In a regulatory filing on Monday last week, JAL said it expected to sell 175 million new shares at ￥3,790 each — the top end of a previously announced range — which would translate to proceeds of ￥663 billion.
That is nearly double the amount of public money spent to keep it afloat during the massive restructuring, with the proceeds expected to be used to pay back the government bailout.
The offering was the year’s second-biggest globally behind Facebook, after the social networking giant’s US$16 billion IPO in May, although Facebook shares have dived since their much-hyped May 18 debut.
Intel Corp chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) is expected to meet with Taiwanese suppliers next month in conjunction with the opening of the Computex Taipei trade show, supply chain sources said on Monday. The visit, the first for Tan to Taiwan since assuming his new post last month, would be aimed at enhancing Intel’s ties with suppliers in Taiwan as he attempts to help turn around the struggling US chipmaker, the sources said. Tan is to hold a banquet to celebrate Intel’s 40-year presence in Taiwan before Computex opens on May 20 and invite dozens of Taiwanese suppliers to exchange views
Application-specific integrated circuit designer Faraday Technology Corp (智原) yesterday said that although revenue this quarter would decline 30 percent from last quarter, it retained its full-year forecast of revenue growth of 100 percent. The company attributed the quarterly drop to a slowdown in customers’ production of chips using Faraday’s advanced packaging technology. The company is still confident about its revenue growth this year, given its strong “design-win” — or the projects it won to help customers design their chips, Faraday president Steve Wang (王國雍) told an online earnings conference. “The design-win this year is better than we expected. We believe we will win
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS