Japan Airlines is to hire Daiwa Securities Group to help raise 50 billion yen ($607 million) as it reorganizes operations in bankruptcy protection. The airline aims to sell common or preferred shares to corporate investors by 31st March, one of the people said, declining to be identified as details of the plan aren’t public. Kojiro Waki, a spokesman for the Tokyo-based carrier, and Kozue Niida, a spokeswoman for Daiwa, declined to comment.
The airline is slashing a third of its workforce and rebuilding capital after seeking court protection from creditors in January. Japan Air has secured 350 billion yen from the government-backed Enterprise Turnaround Initiative Corp. and is seeking another 50 billion yen, Chairman Kazuo Inamori said in a speech in Tokyo last month.
“They need to raise more capital,” said Yasuhiro Matsumoto, an analyst in Tokyo at Shinsei Securities Co. “The business environment will be more severe in the future, and so they need more capital to survive.”