Tony: OneCapital Group has not abandoned its US listing

Tan Sri Tony Fernandes, CEO of Onebet Group, told Bloomberg after attending an event in Bangkok that although the group had previously terminated a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) listing agreement worth 1.1 billion 50 million US dollars (about 5.1 billion 30 million ringgit), he did not abandon his intention to go public in the US.

“We will be looking for other options, including direct listing in the US. We also do not rule out that we will go through SPAC again to complete the US listing plan.”

In October of this year, OneCapital Group decided to terminate the original SPAC agreement with the Aetherium acquisition company because it was unable to meet the NASDAQ listing regulations.

Additionally, Tony pointed out that Air Asia hopes to replicate the model of Dubai becoming a global aviation center and turn places such as Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok into a low-cost airline version of “Dubai.”

“What I want to do, and the first in the world, is to build international aviation hubs like Dubai and Qatar in Kuala Lumpur and Bangkok. Bangkok has similar centers, and Singapore is definitely already an international aviation center, but these are all centers for high-end airlines, and no one in the world has built a true low-cost airline center yet.”

He added that the “sweet zone” of AirAsia's operations is for routes between 1 hour and a half to 6 hours.

Furthermore, Tony predicts that the aviation sector will fully recover next year, and 2026 will be a golden year for the aviation industry.

“We've been through 5 years of hell, but we've come back to life and are looking to grow.”

He added that geopolitical risks have pushed AirAsia as more passengers choose to fly to Asian destinations rather than the US or Europe.

In addition to building a low-cost international aviation center, Tony also expects to add more routes departing from second-tier Asian cities, such as Chiang Mai, Thailand to all parts of China.

Tony also said that AirAsia has re-hired all 2,600 former employees who were laid off during the pandemic, and the company currently has a total number of 0.02 million3,000 employees.

Regarding the damage to the supply chain and the shortage of jet airliners, Tony pointed out that AirAsia should currently have enough aircraft to drive growth.

“Not to mention, the used aircraft market also has sufficient supply.”