Tata Sons to hike stake in AirAsia India

Mumbai : Industrial conglomerate Tata Sons on Monday proposed to increase its stake in AirAsia India to 49 percent. According to Tata Sons, it plans to increase equity stake in AirAsia India to 49 percent from its existing stake of 41.06 percent.

"Tata Sons has entered into an agreement with AirAsia (India), Telestra Tradeplace and two of the directors of the company, being S Ramadorai (chairman) and R Venkataramanan," the industrial conglomerate said in a statement.

"Under the agreement which Tata Sons proposes to increase its stake in the company to 49 percent from its existing stake of 41.06 percent, by acquiring 7.94 per cent equity stake from Telestra," it said.

The statement elaborated that Ramadorai and Venkataramanan, in their individual capacity, propose to acquire 0.5 per cent and 1.5 per cent shareholding respectively of Telestra's remaining two percent equity stake in the company.

"S.Ramadorai and R.Venkataramanan, in their individual capacity, propose to acquire 0.5 per cent and 1.5 per cent shareholding respectively of Telestra's remaining 2 per cent equity stake in the company," the statement said.

AirAsia Investment will continue to hold its 49 per cent stake in the company, it said, Tata Sons disclosed that it entered into the agreement on March 14, 2016, and expects the transaction to be completed in April 2016, subject to the completion of all the relevant corporate approvals and processes.

Initially, AirAsia Investment owned a 49 per cent stake in the budget airline, followed by 30 per cent by Tata Sons and the rest 21 percent was held with Telestra Tradeplaces. Last year, Tata Sons bought 11 per cent of Telestra's stake, taking its total holding in the low cost carrier (LCC) to 41 per cent.