Shares of regional budget airline AirAsia Bhd yesterday plunged after chief executive officer (CEO) Tony Fernandes apologized for supporting former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak in a historic election last week that ended with a victory for a four-party alliance led by Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad.
The upset brought Malaysia’s first change of government since it gained independence from Britain in 1957.
Fernandes has praised Najib’s coalition in a video released ahead of the polls.
Photo: Reuters
He was also pictured with Najib in an AirAsia plane emblazoned with the coalition’s campaign slogan and with the cabin crew’s signature red uniform changed into the coalition’s deep blue.
Fernandes on Sunday apologized for “buckling” under government pressure.
He said he has been asked to remove former Malaysian minister of trade Rafidah Aziz, who has openly supporter Mahathir, as chairman of his long-haul budget unit AirAsia X and also cancel extra flights at low fares ahead of the polls.
He said he was part of a highly regulated industry, where nearly everything requires government approval, and was foolish to think that his endorsement would appease the Malaysian government and protect jobs.
“Under the intense pressure, I buckled. It wasn’t right; I will forever regret it,” Fernandes said. “It is still the happiest moment of my life that we have a new Malaysia that will give everyone an amazing chance to reach the skies.”
AirAsia stocks fell as much as 13 percent from their last traded price on Tuesday last week before market holidays during and after the Wednesday last week election.
They recovered some of that lost ground by noon yesterday, trading at 3.55 ringgit, down 4 percent from Tuesday last week’s close.
The benchmark index also rebounded after opening lower, gaining 0.4 percent, while the Malaysian ringgit dipped in a knee-jerk reaction to uncertainties over the change in government.
The US dollar was trading at 3.95 ringgit as of noon yesterday after climbing as high as 4.05 ringgit.
Mahathir has inherited a robust economy that grew at a three-year high of 5.9 percent last year, but some are worried over his government’s pledges to abolish an unpopular 6 percent goods and services tax, revive fuel subsidies and review big projects linked to China’s regional infrastructure initiative.
Mahathir has moved swiftly by naming Lim Guan Eng, a trained accountant who helmed the small, but wealthy state of Penang for a decade, as minister of finance and set up a special five-member economic council that include a renowned former central bank governor and Hong Kong-based billionaire tycoon Robert Kuok (郭鶴年), Malaysia’s richest man.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
RSS