Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar: Have you read the AirAsia’s financial statements?

by YB Wee Choo Keong


I would like to share this comments which I have received from a reader, Warrior 123. I am surprised that mainstream newspapers like Star and others, have resorted to quoting sources, has painted a very rosy picture of this AirAsia/MAS share swap without any analysis on the income statements of AirAsia. Please read this well thought out piece below. Judge for yourself.  I hope that Tan Datuk Sri Azman Mokhtar, head of Khazanah Nasional Bhd, and the bankers can convince us otherwise with their own analysis based on the AirAsia financial statements.   
1.As of the 1st Quarter of 2011, Air Asia (AA) debts amounted to 7.7 billion with cash balances amounting to 1.7billion.
2. In August 2010. AA announced a deferment of their proposed aircraft purchases but sometime in June 2011 they reversed their decision and proceeded to place an order for an additional 200 new aircrafts at the Paris Air Show.
3. As of 31 March 2011, based on data from their 1st Quarter report, AA’s capital commitments stood at RM 19 billion. With the above announcement, an additional RM 54 billion will be added as Capital Commitments as implied in this article:
http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/6/24/business/8966621&sec=business
the proposed CC of roughly 75 billion will be spread over a 15 year period ending 2026. In other words,AA has to ratchet up its earnings to an average of 5 billion per annum to meet its future dues. From 2006 to 2010. AA’s revenue grew by 10 fold from 110 million to roughly 1.1billion, an average growth of RM 200 million per annum.
4. Its cash trove rose 6 fold from approximately 300 million to 1.7 billion but its debts skyrocketed from 1.05 billion in 2006 to 7.7 billion in 2010, an increase of 700%. One gets the ghastly feeling that this is a debt burden that is spiralling out of control.
The schedule for the aircraft delivery is as follows with the Neo being received from 2016 onwards:
2012 = 14
2013 = 13
2014 = 18
2015 = 19
2016 = 19 (4 Neo)
2017 = 14
2018 = 18
2019 = 19
2020 = 20
2021 = 21
2022 = 23
2023 = 24
2024 = 24
2025 = 24
2026 = 9
To compound the issue, the world economy including Asia’s will be into another maelstrom and air travel will invariably be hit:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2011/08/02/bloomberg1376-LPCGED6TTDS201-7DB69T4DDVIF7J1IS4SUCOAULO.DTL
and we probably will have a white elephant in NS soon give or take three years and another one of my dire predictions I made in when commenting on AA in 2009 materialises.
Of course AA can cancel orders but contract penalties will be onerous. In any case, TF is betting on the assumption that being a big borrower will shield him from foreclosure as banks will be leery of bearing heavy losses! bUt then a sizeable chunk of those loans are being held by Malaysian banks and in the worst case scenario, the government and the taxpayer will have to pick the tab to avert a financial meltdown cascading down the AA slope.