Jet Airways to raise $200 mn in share sale

ALSO READ See latest News about Jet Airways See previous management interviews See what other Experts & Brokerages are saying about Jet Airways

Jet Airways , the country's largest private carrier, aims to raise up to USD 200 million initially through a share placement with institutions to help reduce its debt, a company official said on Monday.

"It will be finalised over the next 3-4 weeks. Our initial tranche will be somewhere between USD 150 to USD 200 million," Senior Vice President M Shiv Kumar told reporters on a conference call.

Chief Executive Nikos Kardassis said the company would eventually look to raise the USD 400 million, that was approved by India's cabinet in December.

The funds would be used primarily to cut the airline's debt that currently stands at Rs 14,210 crore (USD 3.1 billion). Jet's debt to equity ratio was about 7:1, Shiv Kumar said.

The carrier earlier reported a net profit of Rs 106 crore for the fiscal third quarter ended December from a net loss of Rs 214 crore a year ago, helped by higher load factors and growing domestic traffic.

Shares in Jet, which has a market value of USD 971 million, rose 3.8% on the result to Rs 539.2 in a Mumbai market that fell 0.5%.

Net sales dipped to 27.23 billion rupees from 29.09 billion as the airline cut some high-cost long-haul routes, and focused on low-cost operations, Shiv Kumar said.

Its domestic traffic grew by 38% in the quarter from a year ago, while domestic load factors increased to 75.4% from 62.4%, it said in a statement.

Load factors on international routes improved to 82.5% versus 67.8%.

Jet commands a network of 112 aircraft spanning local and international operations and officials said the firm was not planning to add capacity for the next 12 months.

"We have no specific plans of adding to our international routes and aircraft," Saroj Datta, executive director, said.