KUALA LUMPUR (June 7): Shares in AirAsia Bhd extended their gains and hit a one-year high in active trade today, after CIMB Research remained bullish on the stock's prospect.

At 11.33am, AirAsia climbed five sen or 1.96% to its one-year high of RM2.60, after 23.46 million shares changed hands, making it the sixth most actively traded counters across the exchange.

In a note to clients today, CIMB Research reiterated its view that the sale of AirAsia's aircraft leasing company Asia Aviation Capital Ltd (AAC) could be a major catalyst.

"AirAsia is currently evaluating an offer by a trade buyer to take a majority stake in AAC, with strong interest among Chinese and Middle East investors.

"The best offer on the table so far values AAC's equity at US$1 billion (about RM4.1 billion). The latter was calculated based on the market value of AAC's current portfolio of aircraft, as well as imputing some of the value of AAC's future portfolio underwritten by AirAsia's large order book with Airbus," CIMB Research said.

"An initial public offering (IPO) via dividend-in-specie is possible, but unlikely in our view," it said.

Given the limited and scattered info, CIMB Research said it was unable to ascertain how much of the partial sale of AAC could flow down to AirAsia's shareholders.

"But AirAsia said that it could retain the sales proceeds to pare down its debt, or declare the proceeds as special dividends. Both options crystallise the value of AirAsia's in-house leasing business with its own network of carriers, and also the value of its order book with Airbus that can be used to grow the business with third-party airlines," it added.

CIMB Research has retained its "add" call with unchanged target price of RM3.13.

Currently, there are 22 analysts covering AirAsia, with 18 of them rating the stock "buy", while four have "hold" calls.