Etihad Airways has been working hard to be ready for an IPO, said CEO Antonoaldo Neves on Wednesday. However, he pointed out that the decision to go public remains on shareholder ADQ.
Reuters quoted Neves saying, “No decision has been made on IPO, it is the shareholder’s decision.”
Neves told Reuters in March that Etihad was improving transparency, governance and its balance sheet to be ready for an IPO should ADQ decide to list it.
There have been talks about the Abu Dhabi-based airline’s plans to make its stock market debut no sooner than 2025. People familiar with the matter said it would be potentially the first IPO of a major Gulf airline as the UAE’s capital ramps up effort to become a global travel hub.
Etihad, owned by sovereign wealth fund ADQ, had declined to comment previously.
However, it wants to present investors with 2024 financial results that will show a strong performance, one of the people said. Geopolitical instability in the region has also weighed on timing, the second person said.
Etihad, which started operations in 2003, spent billions of dollars buying minority stakes in other carriers to create larger network through its Abu Dhabi hub and better compete with Gulf peers Emirates and Qatar Airways. But that strategy unravelled as many of those airlines ran into financial trouble.