Kenya Airways has announced it is suspending trading at the Nairobi Securities Exchange for a period of ninety days beginning on July 3.
Kenya’s struggling national carrier had applied for a suspension of its stocks at the NSE, which was endorsed by the Capital Markets Authority.
“The company’s operational and corporate restructure and government buy-out is now imminent following the publication of the National Management Aviation Bill 2020 last month,” a statement from Nairobi Securities Exchange Plc has said.
The suspension of its Kenyan Airways shares at the NSE comes as its future hangs in the balance exactly a year after the country’s parliament approved a bill to nationalise the carrier.
This was seen as a means of staving off its mounting debts.
The Kenyan government has a 48.9 percent stake in the carrier with KLM-France accounting for 7.8 percent.
Several past attempts to save the airline from collapse had failed, prompting a crafting of the National Aviation Management Bill, 2020 for a National Civil Aviation Council.
The council will be tasked with creating a proposed Kenya Aviation Corporation (KAC), to run the national carrier.
The KAC will also be mandated to control shares belonging to the Kenya Airways, Kenya Airports Authority, and Aviation Investment Corporation.
WN/as/APA