D-Day for MAS – will it be aye or nay?

IT'S almost prophetic.
Twenty years ago, the government brokered a deal which saw corporate high flyer Tan Sri Tajuddin Ramli in 1994 privatise Malaysian Airline System Bhd (MAS) which, anecdotal evidence has shown, eventually proved to be detrimental to the carrier's fortunes.
Today, minority shareholders will be asked to say "aye" to another privatisation exercise, albeit through a different route. This time, the national carrier's majority shareholder Khazanah Nasional Bhd has said, in not so many words, that it will exhaust all avenues to ensure it succeeds.
The overhaul of MAS will involve the retrenchment of employees, which is much avoided in an election year; renegotiation of supply contracts; the enactment of a MAS Act; and even the setting up of an aviation commission, which will address "haphazard competition".
In anticipation of this, shareholders went on a buying frenzy yesterday, making the stock the most actively traded, ahead of the much-awaited EGM to decide on the latest, and some say final, bid to turn the ailing carrier around.
The stock closed half a sen higher at 26 sen, just one sen shy of the 27 sen a share Khazanah is offering under a share capital reduction and repayment (SCR) scheme which will lead to the privatisation of MAS, for the second time in two decades.
It is ironic that a route many have said led to the downfall of MAS is now seen as the answer to its woes.
And many have opined that shareholders will have no choice but to vote for the exercise considering the implications of it not going through.
Khazanah, which owns nearly 70% of MAS, has stated clearly that it does not have a contingency plan should the SCR not be approved, reiterating that it is the first step necessary in its 12-point plan to revive the national icon.
Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see how things develop today. After all, these are the same shareholders who had voted against paying their board of directors despite reappointing a few of them to the board.