Taiwan’s Starlux Airlines aims for $164m in capital raise

Starlux Airlines will pursue another capital increase that it hopes will raise up to TWD5b Taiwan new dollars (US$164m) in funds, which it will use “to enrich the working capital and improve the financial structure,” it announced in a Taipei Exchange filing on February 21. The airline said that its board of directors had approved the issuance of no more than 300m common shares. The issue price will be announced separately after the price is set, and the chairman - Chang Kuo-wei - has been authorised to determine whether the market conditions are favourable before triggering the process. An earlier capital increase, its sixth, raised TWD3b (US$100m) in September 2022. The move comes as the price of Starlux Airlines’ shares, which are traded on the Emerging Market of the Taipei Stock Exchange, has soared in the last two weeks. Last week, the bourse set trading restrictions on the shares because of their volatility in recent sessions. In a separate filing, on February 22, in response to a question from Taiwan’s Commercial Times, Starlux Airlines said it “will apply for a listing in April at the earliest, and it is expected to be listed at the end of this year or early next year. The goal of Starlux Airlines is currently to evaluate whether to adopt multiple listings.”<br/>