17 TAN SRI TONY FERNANDES AND DATUK KAMARUDIN MERANUN
Flagship: AirAsia Bhd Net worth: RM3.95bil Fernandes and Kamarudin’s names have appeared among the top-40 richest Malaysians on-and-off over the last few years.
Fernandes, the founder of AirAsia Bhd, first broke into the list of billionaires in 2013 with a fortune of RM1.01bil. Last year, he and his long-time business partner, Kamarudin, emerged again in the top-40 richest league.
Both of them collectively owned a net worth of close to RM4bil.
The sudden surge in their fortunes is undoubtedly because of the share price jump of their flagship in recent times.
AirAsia made headlines recently with the stock hitting an all-time high earlier this year, as investors may be looking at the possibility of a special dividend following the completion of a share-swap agreement between AirAsia’s ground-handling unit and Singapore’s SATS Ltd.
Looking back in 2017, the Main Market-listed counter has appreciated strongly by nearly 56%. Currently, its market capitalisation stands at RM14.4bil.
The AirAsia Group has been looking at monetising some of its non-core businesses, which may yield additional dividends, apart from one-off gains from the asset disposals.
Last year, the company sold its entire 50% stake in its joint venture with aviation training provider CAE for US$100mil (RM429.3mil) in a bid to focus on its core business.
It has ceded full control of Asian Aviation Centre of Excellence (AACE) to CAE, which will remain as AirAsia Group’s exclusive training partner.
Established in 2011, AACE, formerly known as the AirAsia Academy, was set up to provide aviation-related training services for pilots, cabin crew, maintenance engineers, technicians and ground services personnel.
Apart from that, AirAsia is also looking at hiving off its aircraft leasing unit, Asia Aviation Capital Ltd, which is in its final stage.
The sale of the leasing arm is part of the move to streamline the airline’s operations and assets ahead of a reorganisation that will see a holding company, AirAsia Group Bhd, assuming the listing status of AirAsia and including the carrier’s regional associates in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.
Recently, AirAsia joined the ranks of digital wallet providers with its own app, BigPay.
Fernandes seems to have big plans with the new e-wallet and prepaid card service. He envisages BigPay to be “worth more than AirAsia” in the future.
The e-wallet service has the captive audience of the community of AirAsia users. Specifically, the BigPay e-wallet service aims to tap into AirAsia’s database of 63 million passengers.
Besides their flagship aviation business, Fernandes and Kamarudin also have interests in finance, sports, hospitality, telecoms and education via the Tune Group, which they co-founded in 2001.