airasia Digital, the digital arm of the Malaysia-based budget airline operator, has called off the US$10-million acquisition plans of Velox Fintech, a subsidiary of Gojek Thailand, says a TechinAsia report.
The reasons haven’t been disclosed in the company’s papers. However, as per AirAsia’s third-quarter 2021 filings, the company finalised the acquisition of Velox for US$40 million.
On July 27, the acquisition of Velox was approved in its entirety. The transaction resulted in goodwill of US$30.8 million. Yet, it had to follow a 12-month purchase price allocation exercise.
Earlier on July 7, airasia announced its plans to acquire Gojek’s Thai operations for a total of US$50 million to rev up the expansion of the airasia Super App in ASEAN. It would also enable Gojek to increase investments in its Vietnam and Singapore operations.
The deal involves a share transfer between the two corporations. Gojek would receive shareholding in airasia super app, whose market value was said to be around US$1 billion.
Also read: Gojek wants to move from the idea of a super app to an on-demand company for everything: Group CTO
Founded in 2001, AirAsia is a one-stop travel, e-commerce, and financial platform that offers over 15 lines of products. Its digital arm leverages the group’s physical and digital assets to create an ecosystem of businesses that connect with its customers in their everyday life.
It consists of three key digital companies: 1) airasia Super App, which provides a lifestyle platform for travel, e-commerce, financial services, farm to table, health and edutech products and services; 2) Teleport, an e-commerce logistics company offering instant door-to-door deliveries; and 3) the fintech arm BigPay.
The AirAsia-Gojek deal was expected to intensify the battle for the number one super app position as Grab, which also positions itself as a super app, is far ahead of others with its deep pocket and backing from top-notch investors.
Reuters first reported in July that AirAsia was looking to a US listing of its digital arm via a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) to raise at least US$300 million.
Grab debuted its IPO in the US this month, following a merger with a SPAC at a US$40 billion valuation.
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Image Credit: airasia
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