KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 21): AirAsia Bhd increased as much as six sen or 5% to become Bursa Malaysia's most active counter.

AirAsia rose to its highest so far today at RM1.37, on the budget airline's proposal to buy back up to 10% of its issued shares.

At 11:06am, AirAsia pared gains at RM1.36, with some 48 million shares done. Based on the company's issued base of 2.78 billion shares, the group had a market capitalisation of RM3.75 billion.

The current share price compares with AirAsia's latest reported net assets per share of RM1.71.

Over the last one year, AirAsia shares had traded at their intraday high at RM2.90 on Dec 26, 2014; before falling to a low at 76.5 sen on Aug 26, 2015.

Last Friday (Sept 18), AirAsia told Bursa Malaysia that it planned to repurchase its shares, following the airline's shareholders' approval.

AirAsia said the exercise aimed to stabilise the price of its shares. The exercise is also intended to prevent speculation of AirAsia shares, when undervalued, to enhance investors' confidence.

As the share buyback will reduce the company's issued share base, it said the exercise would also improve the earnings per share of AirAsia.

(Note: The Edge Research's fundamental score reflects a company’s profitability and balance sheet strength, calculated based on historical numbers. The valuation score determines if a stock is attractively valued or not, also based on historical numbers. A score of 3 suggests strong fundamentals and attractive valuations.)