Qatar Airways to delay IPO

Any stock market flotation of Qatar Airways has been pushed back by several years, the chief executive of the Gulf state’s flag carrier said. “I do not think it will be any closer than five to eight years,” Akbar Al Baker told journalists at the ITB Berlin Travel Fair. Qatar Airways indicated late in 2010 it was planning an initial public offering in early 2012 after three consecutive years of profit. Last June, Al Baker had said the carrier could seek a stock market listing by the end of 2011. The IPO “will be postponed for a long time because we feel it will take a long time to recover from the economic situation that the world is in,” he said. Al Baker said the IPO plan would have been to list 50 per cent of the company’s shares, but limit foreign ownership of stock to 20-25 per cent. He said profit would slump at the airline in the financial year to end-March, with revenue hurt to the tune of almost $490 million from the Arab Spring uprisings and $515 million from high fuel prices. “But we will still have our nose above the water,” he said, adding he expected revenue of $6 billion, up from $5.1 billion the previous year. Al Baker said in June the airline made net profit of $205 million for 2009/10 and more than $230 million in 2010/2011.