Sunday, July 29, 2012

Bhoja Air barred from selling business assets

KARACHI, July 29: An attempt by Bhoja Air to shed its aviation assets in the country and take its investment abroad has been foiled by the Civil Aviation Authority by freezing its assets at least till the airline settles its reported Rs778 million liabilities, sources told Dawn on Sunday.

Bhoja Air was trying to give one of its aircraft to Shaheen Air International, but the CAA put its foot down and declined to allow the deal to materialize to protect interests of heirs of the Bhoja Air crash victims and to wrest its own outstanding dues from the airline, the sources added.

They said the CAA had also informed the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), Securities Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), and Shaheen Air International (SAI) and other relevant organizations about its decision of not allowing the airline to liquidate its assets until it cleared its dues.

Following the Bhoja Air flight crash near Islamabad on April 20, which left all the 127 people on board dead, the government had registered a case against Arshad Jalil, whose family is a major shareholder in the airline. Mr Jalil was out of the country at that time. Rather than returning to Pakistan to fight a legal battle, he preferred to reside in a Gulf state where also he had business interests, the sources said, adding that in a attempt to take away his investment in the airline, he tried to sell the Boeing 737-400 aircraft parked at the Karachi airport to SAI.