18. TAN SRI TONY FERNANDES & DATUK KAMARUDIN MERANUN Flagship: AirAsia Group Net worth: RM3.43bil

RIDING on the fintech revolution, Fernandes and his buddy, Kamarudin recently launched BigPay, an e-wallet and a accompanying prepaid card service.

The flamboyant Fernandes is hoping this new business will be worth more than his airline, AirAsia.

Nearly two decades ago, this inseparable duo bought over the then troubled AirAsia for RM1. They turned it around and revolutionised air travel in Asia. Today the carrier is Asia’s biggest low-cost carrier.

Riding on the low-cost model of being lean, simple and efficient, AirAsia caters to the growing affluent in Asia. It has the depth in network and frequency, flies 293 routes of which 90 are unique routes.

It continues to innovate to boost its ancillary income. The Malaysian operations continues to be its star contributor and for 2018 the ancillary income just from this operations reached RM1.49bil.

Last year the airline went on a massive cash raising exercise by offering sale and leaseback arrangements for its 104 planes in a US$1.9bi deal. This helped turned the airline from a net debt position to net cash of RM2.11bil as at end September, 2018.

Apart from that, the airline group sold other non-core assets in the year. It raised huge cash and rewarded shareholders with dividends, including a special dividend totalling 52 sen a share for the full year. AirAsia reported RM1.98bil in net profit for full year 2018 from RM1.63bil a year earlier.

The sale and leaseback arrangements will continue into this year.

AirAsia has airline operations in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. It plans to begin services from Vietnam in August this year. China remains on its radar as it hopes to set up an airline there.

Both Fernandes (group CEO of AirAsia Group) and Kamarudin (non-executive chairman) control three listed companies – AirAsia, its sister airline AirAsia X Bhd (AAX) and insurer Tune Protect Bhd on Bursa Malaysia.

The market capitalisation of AirAsia is at RM9.2bil, AAX (RM1.06bil), and Tune Protect (RM522mil).

Both Fernandes and Kamarudin hold a 32.2% stake in AirAsia, which is their flagship airline. This is held via Tune Air (15.5%) and Tune Live (16.7%).

Fernandes and Kamaurdin hold a 48.8% and 40.2% stake in Tune Air. They have an equal stake in Tune Live and Tune Group.

In AAX, Tune Group has a 17.8% stake, Kamarudin (11.1%) and AirAsia (13.8%). As for Tune Protect, Tune Group has 15.8%, AirAsia (13.7%).

Both the airline chiefs fell a spot lower to the 18th place from 17th as the richest Malaysians amid challenging times faced by the air sector and volatile fuel prices. Their net worth was nearly 14% lower to RM3.43bil from RM3.95bil a year earlier.