AirAsia CEO Dumped Shares Days Before Flight Disappeared
Move prompts speculation Tony Fernandes had prior knowledge
Image Credits: Wikimedia Commons
AirAsia CEO Tony Fernandes dumped 944,800 shares in
Tune Insurance Holdings Bhd, the organization that provides travel
insurance for AirAsia passengers, just days before the disappearance of
Flight QZ8501.
On December 26, the Malaysian Insider
reported that Fernandes, the founder of Tune Group Sdn Bhd which owns
AirAsia, had sold a total of 944,800 shares in Tune Insurance Holdings
Bhd, with 850,000 shares being dumped on December 22, and the other
94,800 being sold the day after.
According to its official website,
Tune Insurance Holdings Bhd is “an insurance product manager” for
AirAsia in which “insurance products are sold to (AirAsia) customers as
part of their online booking process.”
The share prices of AirAsia and Tune Insurance Holdings
both fell on the first day of trading after the disappearance of Flight
QZ8501, with the former shedding 12.9 percent at one point. Tune
Insurance Holdings lost 0.6%.
Fernandes decision to dump the shares less than a
week before AirAsia Flight QZ8501 disappeared over the Java Sea prompted
some to speculate that he may have had prior knowledge of the incident.
“Did Fernandes know his company stock was about to take a hit? The timing is suspicious,” asks Heavy.com, adding, “If so, it indicates knowledge of an impending attack on AirAsia.”
The International Business Times
adds that the move has prompted many to voice the theory that
Fernandes, “possibly knew about an impending attack on one of the
company’s aircraft.”
The story bears some similarity to the unusual market activity in airline stocks
that preceded the September 11, 2001 terror attacks. An “extraordinary”
amount of ‘put options’ – speculation that a stock price will fall –
were placed on United and American Airlines in the days leading up to
9/11.
As we reported earlier,
one of the other main unanswered questions surrounding the incident is
why a Chinese blogger urged people to avoid AirAsia flights less than
two weeks before the disappearance of Flight QZ8501.
Some say the posts, which were made on Chinese
social media site Weibo, are a startling indication of prior knowledge
whereas others claim the posts were deceptively edited after the crash
of Flight QZ8501 to create the impression that its disappearance had
been predicted ahead of time.
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