Rashdan quits MAS

KUALA LUMPUR, May 29 — MAS executive director and deputy chief executive Mohammed Rashdan Mohd Yusof has resigned from his posts, nine months after being appointed to the loss-making flag carrier when a share swap was announced with rival AirAsia.

The SunDaily reported it learnt Rashdan(picture) submitted his resignation letter to MAS chairman Tan Sri Md Nor Yusof yesterday afternoon. A MAS source confirmed the report.

“It was inevitable that he resigned,” the MAS source told The Malaysian Insider. 

The Malaysian Insiderlearnt that Rashdan and his family have been under pressure since reports surfaced that they flouted the airline’s prohibition on bringing their toddler to the first-class cabin. The senior executive from Khazanah had denied the claim and an internal investigation had vindicated him.

“He has been under a lot of pressure because of that incident. To his credit, he stuck on to work out the sukuk financing for MAS,” a source said, referring to 10-year RM2.5 billion sukuk programme to shore up its capital base under a three-pronged funding pillar.

The funding plan is part of the ailing national carrier’s strategy to return to profitability after posting a narrower first-quarter net loss.

MAS had also said it had secured a bridging loan of RM1 billion from a local commercial bank on March 30 to ensure its working capital cash balances remained adequate until the expected drawdown of the first tranche of the sharia law-compliant sukuk.

During his short stint in MAS, Rashdan was in charge of short-haul operations, commercial, finance, corporate finance and strategic procurement units. This includes the purchase of aircraft.

But the short-haul operations section was aborted when MAS decided to shelve plans for a short-haul premium airline.

Rashdan’s latest stint in MAS was his second involvement in restructuring the national airline in the past decade.

In 2002, Rashdan’s BinaFikir Sdn Bhd was instrumental in the restructuring of MAS under the Widespread Asset Unbundling (WAU) scheme. The other BinaFikir co-founder was Khazanah’s managing director Tan Sri Azman Mokhtar.