Two Of Asia's Richest Men Join Forces In Japan Venture

Tom King

WealthBriefingAsia

2 July 2014

Tony Fernandes and Hiroshi Mikitani are getting together as AirAsia Bhd attempts to reconquer Japan via the low-cost carrier market. The new entity is called AirAsia Japan.

Mikitani is estimated to be worth around $7.7 billion through his online retail empire Rakuten while Fernandes is said to be worth $650 million. Fernandes is group chief executive of AirAsia.

This will be the second time that Fernandes has tried to penetrate the potentiality lucrative Japanese market. In 2013 AirAsia ended a joint venture arrangement with Japan’s ANA.

Rakuten is seeking to build a new revenue source in the airline business using the customer base and backing of its online shopping mall. Its deep knowledge of online retail and the travel business will also reduce the cost of developing a system for selling tickets on the Internet

In a statement yesterday, AirAsia said it will enter a shareholder agreement with Octave Japan Infrastructure Fund I GK, Rakuten, Noevir Holdings and Alpen Co to establish AirAsia Japan.

Rakuten was incorporated in Japan on February 1997; business lines include Internet services, financial services (bank, credit card, securities and other areas), telecommunications and professional sports, while Noevir, which was incorporated in Japan on March 2011, has businesses such as cosmetics, pharmaceuticals and health food, apparel and aviation business.

Alpen was incorporated in Japan on July 1972. Businesses include manufacturing and retail of ski equipment, other sporting goods equipment including golf, tennis, marine sports, baseball, etc. and leisure goods; management of ski resorts, golf courses and fitness clubs. Octave was incorporated in Japan on May 2014 and its major business is to acquire, own, manage, hold, sell, and dispose of the shares of AirAsia Japan and make collections from the shares of AirAsia Japan.