Cathay Pacific Airway"™ new investor called for the airline"™s biggest shareholder, Swire Pacific, to "lead" the loss-making company out of "hard time".
Kingboard Chemical, which became the third largest stakeholder in Hong Kong"™s flagship airline this year, said it wanted the Swire family to intervene "“ to be accountable and responsible "“ by taking temporary day-to-day control to "help" steer the company"™s return to profitability amid a three-year restructuring programme.
"I hope someone in the Swire family, as Cathay Pacific is in hard times at the moment, will come out and lead the company for a while before handing control back to the professionals," Kingboard"™s founder and chairman, Cheung Kwok-wing, said in an exclusive interview with the South China Morning Post. He put a six to 12-month time frame on the airline returning to health.
In a wide-ranging interview, Cheung, 61, branded himself "a long-term investor" rather than "a corporate raider", and said that Cathay Pacific was a "once in a lifetime" investment with a strong future ahead of it and that he would only want to tighten his grip on the airline.
Cheung was animated in the interview, reflecting his ambition for the company. He endorsed new CEO Rupert Hogg and revealed that his desire to buy Swire"™s holdings was rejected…
