Why is Jentayu 'rubbishing' a plan it wants to complement?
Published on: Friday, November 28, 2014
KUALA LUMPUR: Coming out of the blue, three-month old Jentayu Danaraksa Sdn Bhd (Jentayu), announced its move to complement the mammoth plan by Khazanah Nasional Bhd to save ailing Malaysia Airlines (MAS).But before a surprised nation can size up its capability of doing so, the company has now rubbished Khazanah's rescue plan.The questions everyone seems to be asking is, why rubbish a plan that Jentayu itself wants to complement?
ADVERTISEMENT
MAS' minority shareholders have accepted the 27 sen offer to delist the national airline, and have in fact, given the mandate to Khazanah's 12-point plan to revive the airline MAS.By right, the Cabinet approved plan should be implemented from here on.However, since then, the strategic assets of the national airline have been the target of a takeover by Jentayu, which has so far provided a very sketchy proposal.The company has only said that it has lined up foreign funding and break up MAS in cherry picking several parts like planes, the maintenance and engineering unit and subsidiary, Firefly.
ADVERTISEMENT
It also wants to save the 6,000 jobs expected to be axed under the Khazanah plan.The crux of the delisting of MAS is to put the national airline on a profitable path. But Jentayu until now has never explained how does this asset stripping will assist in the revival or how it plans to save the 6,000 jobs?
ADVERTISEMENT
What is crucial is, how does a little known company plan to finance these purchases?Yes, from the perspective of the people, saving 6,000 jobs is an effort that should be lauded. But Khazanah's 12-point plan also addressed this issue, via re-skilling and placements in companies. So there are no actual job losses.What should be of paramount importance here is the saving of the national airline. The question of how Jentayu's takeover can save MAS has not been answered. From a layman's perspective, the takeover will only benefit Jentayu which is a private party and individually owned as it is just moving the revenue that MAS ought to receive from Khazanah to its own pocket. How is this assisting MAS then? We have gone down this road many times. When a private party fails, the government has had to bail it out. Do we want to go through this yet again? Well, perhaps Jentayu will not fail and be a success. But no one can say that for sure right now. It also goes back to whether we can put our trust in a three-month old company to steer the national airline back to profitability? What are Jentayu's "selling points" that managed to convince its foreign funders to part with their money? Tell us.Please do not reiterate that Jentayu wants to discuss with Khazanah its plans or to look at data to come up with an offer price. This is beginning to sound like a broken record. MAS has been a listed company for more than a decade and all information is public knowledge. It needs only to visit the MAS' or Bursa Malaysia websites. Everything is there, from quarterly results to annual reports, which can be downloaded for scrutiny.Certain sectors may argue that MAS has undergone three restructurings under Khazanah. Well, the restructurings were merely to make MAS' financials look good and did not address structural issues over staff, restrictive work rules and lop-sided agreements. How Jentayu will address this, is not explained.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
Daily Express Malaysia
