Bamboo Airways (QH, Hanoi Noi Bai International) parent company FLC Group plans to sell its remaining stake in the carrier as part of its restructuring plan, the property and leisure conglomerate announced at its extraordinary general meeting on March 4 and in an accompanying statement.
FLC Chairman Lê Bá Nguyên said that in 2023 the group plans to reshape around its core business areas with three main pillars - real estate, resorts, and merger and acquisition projects - while at the same time restructuring its debts in order “to keep the company running.”
This means that “in the coming period, FLC will review and reevaluate all investments in subsidiaries and associated companies” and “is working with leading financial consultants to ensure maximum efficiency and benefits for the group as well as for shareholders,” he explained.
“Particularly for the shares in Bamboo Airways Joint Stock Company, FLC plans to consider transferring this shareholding,” he added. For this to happen, “we need to develop a specific assessment plan with financial experts, then we can come up with a specific plan. Once there is a specific plan, we will issue an information disclosure for shareholders to know.”
Nguyên revealed that FLC Group had invested VND4.02 trillion dong (USD169 million) in Bamboo Airways, which launched flight operations early in 2019, but the airline has yet to be profitable. The carrier was the pet project of entrepreneur Trịnh Văn Quyết, former chairman of both FLC and Bamboo Airways, but since Trịnh was arrested along with several other executives in March 2022 and charged with alleged stock market manipulation and concealing information on share transactions, both airline and conglomerate have sought to distance themselves from each other.
FLC now holds a reduced 21.7% stake in Bamboo Airways, while according to the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam, Trịnh has a 55.5% stake in the carrier.
According to the ch-aviation fleets and ch-aviation capacities modules, Bamboo Airways currently operates an all-leased fleet of 29 aircraft (six A320-200s, six A320-200Ns, three A321-200s, four A321-200Ns, two A321-200NX, three B787-9s (with ten more of the type to be delivered), and five ERJ 190-100LRs) on a total of 54 routes, 40 of which are domestic and 14 international.
