Japan Airlines to raise up to $8.4 bn in share sale

Japan Airlines, the flag carrier that went bust in one of the nation's biggest ever bankruptcies, said Thursday that its new share offering could raise as much as 663 billion yen ($8.4 billion). That is nearly double the amount of public money spent to keep the carrier afloat during its restructuring and was on track to be the year's second-biggest share sale globally after Facebook's $16.0-billion listing. The new shares in JAL, which went bankrupt in January 2010 and saw its shares delisted the following month with debts totalling 2.32 trillion yen, are scheduled to start trading on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on September 19. On Thursday, the carrier said it would sell 175 million shares at a price between 3,500 yen and 3,790 yen. The airline, which continued to fly during its time off the stock exchange, implemented massive job and route cuts as part of its overhaul. This month it pointed to its improved financial health, saying its April-June quarter net profit had more than doubled to 26.9 billion yen. Cost cutting and improved productivity were credited by the company for the result, which was up from a 12.7 billion yen net profit a year ago. It said revenue had climbed 12.5 percent to 286.7 billion yen on the back of a pickup in international travel demand as a strong yen prompted more Japanese to venture overseas. The result was a major turnaround for the carrier, which exited bankruptcy proceedings in March last year.