An aircraft of Vietnam Airlines. (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi - Vietnam Airlines JSC (HoSE: HVN) recently announced that it has completed the transfer of 35 percent of its shares in Cambodia Angkor Air (K6) to the receiver, under an agreement between the two parties in the share transfer contract.

After the transfer, K6 is no longer an affiliated company of the flag carrier.

According to a 2021 audited consolidated financial statement, on January 3 and March 29, the airline received 30 million USD and 4 million USD respectively from investors to buy back the contributed capital of the company at K6.

It had also received a deposit of 1 million USD in 2019. The total 35 million USD corresponds to 35 percent of K6 shares.

Although the money was only paid until 2022, due to the transfer of stock ownership in 2021, Vietnam Airlines’ report has no longer recorded K6 as an associate, and revenue from financial activities posted a gain of more than 647.7 billion VND from the profit of the transfer of contributed capital.

The income has helped the carrier reduce its loss in 2021 and its equity is still greater than zero, escaping a delisting sentence.

Cambodia Angkor Air was established in 2009 under the cooperation of Vietnam Airlines and the Royal Government of Cambodia.

Under the joint venture contract, Vietnam Airlines contributed 49 percent of the capital to Cambodia Angkor Air with the historical price of 868.5 billion VND.

At the end of 2021, after divesting 35 percent of shares, the remaining 14 per cent of K6 shares were transferred to the investment portfolio to contribute capital to other entities with the historical price of 248 billion VND.

Last year, K6 business activities were heavily affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, like other airlines in the region and the world.

To minimise losses, K6 has implemented solutions to restructure, reduce the scale of operations, maintaining only a few main routes with minimal frequency to cut costs, negotiating to delay payments, and taking advantage of every opportunity to increase the exploitation of charter and cargo flights to supplement cash flow to maintain operations.

However, it had lost 17.7 million USD last year, an increase of 37.2 percent compared to 2020’s losses.

On the stock market, HVN fell 1.04 percent to trade at 18,950 VND per share at 10:55 (local time) after gaining for four straight sessions.