GEORGE TOWN (Aug 19): Shares of AirAsia Bhd rose 2.75% in active trade this morning after India’s Tata Group raised its stake in the low-cost carrier’s Indian unit.

At 10.30am, AirAsia rose three sen to RM1.12 with 14,838,100 shares changing hands, giving it a market capitalisation of RM3.03 billion.

Yesterday, AirAsia chief executive officer Tan Sri Tony Fernandes confirmed that India’s Tata raised its shareholding from 30% to 41% as reported by Indian media last week.

Tata’s interest in AirAsia (valuation: 2; fundamental: 0.2) rose after its purchase of 11% from fellow Indian shareholder Arun Bhatia of Telestra Tradeplace Pvt Ltd whose stake shrunk correspondingly to 10% from 21%.

Fernandes, however, declined to speculate whether Tata would continue raising its stake in the airline associate to 48% as claimed by a source to the business daily The Economic Times.

Parent AirAsia continues to hold 49% in AirAsia India which was initially formed on a joint venture basis (AirAsia: 49%; Tata: 41%; and Arun Bhatia: 10%).

(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.)