The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) has advised that NOK Airlines Public Company Limited, trading as Nok Air (DD, Bangkok Don Mueang), remains at risk of delisting because it has failed to submit financial statements within the required timeline, and its balance sheet remains in the red. The SET has given the low-cost carrier new deadlines to address the matters or face having its shares removed from public trade.
On August 31, Nok Air CEO Wutthiphum Jurangkool again told the SET that the submission of financial statements for calendar 2022 would be delayed until September 30 because they needed more time to reconcile inventory records. The SET generally requires audited financial statements to be filed within three months of the year's end. The airline has also failed to submit the required reports for the first two quarters of 2023.
Nok Air filed for bankruptcy protection in July 2021. At the time, the airline was carrying debts of more than THB26 billion baht (USD721.8 million). Notably, its largest creditors were its majority shareholders, the Jurangkool family, who had a 75% stake in Nok Air. However, ten months after the initial bankruptcy filing, Jurangkool told local media that the airline had managed to renegotiate leases with 80% of lessors, reducing overall lease costs by 40%. In October 2021, Bangkok's Central Bankruptcy Court accepted the restructuring plan, giving Nok Air an automatic five years to complete the process.
In April, ch-aviation reported that Jurangkool was warning that the restructuring may take more than five years, citing fuel costs, the foreign exchange rate, and aircraft availability as the reasons why. At the time, he said the airline had repaid only 2% of the amount owed to more than 200 creditors.
In the absence of 2022 financial statements, Nok Air's financial performance that year remains unknown, but the almost two-decade-old carrier has not recorded a profit since 2016. In the last year that financial statements are available - for 2021 - the airline posted a net loss of THB1.4 billion (USD38.8 million). However, this was a significant improvement on 2020's net loss of THB7.99 billion (USD216 million).
Approaching the two-year mark of the court accepting the restructuring plan, the SET says Nok Air has failed to address problems around the timely submission of financial statements while getting its equity back into the black. The stock exchange has set new deadlines for the airline; September 8, 2024, to address the equity issue, and October 2, 2024, to submit all the due financial statements.
"Nok has a duty to eliminate all causes of delisting within specified period for each cause," the SET's September 18 notice reads.
The SET rules give listed companies three years to address issues potentially causing a delisting and, subject to meeting that, another two years to resume trading normally. Trading in Nok Air shares remains suspended. The airline's fourteen B737-800s (seven inactive) fly to 19 destinations in Thailand and China.
