Grupo Aeroméxico will delist from the Mexican Stock Exchange (Bolsa Mexicana de Valores) following a decision to this effect by an extraordinary shareholders meeting on June 27, 2022, the airline announced.

The delisting forms part of its restructuring agreement (Joint Plan of Reorganisation) with its creditors. It is a precursor to its expected listing on the New York Stock Exchange by year-end.

In a statement, the airline said the delisting involves:

  • the cancellation of the shares registry representing its capital stock from the Mexican securities registry (Registro Nacional de Valores - RNV);
  • the delisting of such shares from the Mexican Stock Exchange;
  • and approval from the Mexican financing and securities commission (Comisión Nacional Bancaria y de Valores - CNBV) for Aeroméxico (AM, México City International) to launch and implement a public acquisition offer for the outstanding shares and, in due course, cancel the registry of such shares.

Once it has authorisation from the CNBV, Aeroméxico will report on the terms and scope of the public offer and its start date, the group said in a statement.

The cancellation of the registry and delisting process is part of the agreements achieved by Aeroméxico with its former creditors and investors, now shareholders of the company, as part of the Registration Rights Agreement (RRA).

"With this, the company has complied with its obligations expressly assumed under the publicly available documents regarding its Joint Plan of Reorganisation and related documents, which became fully effective on March 17, 2022, including its contractual obligations under the RRA that is part of the plan," the statement read.

In addition, Aeroméxico said it is also required to file a simple potential registration statement of its shares before the US Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) no later than December 30, 2022 (unless the parties extend such deadline under the RRA) as part of the obligations of the company under the RRA.

After more than a year of negotiations with its creditors, Aeroméxico exited US Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on March 17, 2022. Like most airlines worldwide, Mexico's biggest airline was hit hard by a 54.2% drop-off in travel demand in 2020, resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. It entered Chapter 11 on June 30, 2020, to implement financial restructuring.

Grupo Aeromexico's first quarter 2022 revenue reached MXN12.9 billion pesos (USD608 million), an 88.4% increase compared to the same period in 2021. It reported a first-quarter 2022 operating loss of MXN763.4 million (USD35.9 million), an improvement of MXN2.7 billion (USD127.1 million) compared to the first quarter in 2021.

Mexico's El Pais newspaper cited Grupo Financiero Monex analyst Brian Rodríguez predicting that Aeromexico will list on the New York Stock Exchange before the end of 2022. He explained the rationale: "It is more attractive for them to go to the United States because there is much greater marketability. The North American market is much larger, and it will be able to raise more capital. The two main shareholders - Apollo and Delta Air Lines (DL, Atlanta Hartsfield Jackson) - are also American."

Jorge Gordillo, director of Economic Analysis at CIBanco, said Aeroméxico would have to recover market share lost to low-cost carriers Volaris (Y4, México City International) and VivaAerobus (Monterrey Mariano Escobedo). For this, it needed more stable and solid capital, he explained.