Kingfisher to raise $400 million through GDRs

25 Feb 2010

New Delhi: Kingfisher Airline's chairman Vijay Mallya has said he is planning to raise $400 million through global depository receipts (GDR) in international markets sometime within the next two weeks.

In this regard, Mallya said he would finalise the size and price of the GDR issue after meeting global investors over the next fortnight.
Already providing an upbeat note to this latest announcement is the earlier one that Kingfisher would join the British Airways-led oneworld alliance.

Mallya also said that Kingfisher's domestic operation has made an operating profit in the last quarter, riding on better load factors.

It has made a net loss of Rs420 crore in the October-December quarter. "Of that Rs300 crore was of one-time nature. We are breaking even on domestic routes and international operations will take a little longer to get there. Joining oneworld will be a major boost to our profitability and domestic occupancy levels."

Mallya also claimed that his was the 'number one' airline of India, ahead of Naresh Goyal's Jet Airways. Jet-JetLite combine, however, has a higher combined market share.

Jet and JetLite had 18.4% and 6.8% share in January 2010, respectively, which adds up to 25.2%, as compared to Kingfisher's 22.2%.