By - Suhita Poddar
Highlights
- Wizz Air shares fell by nearly 1.5 per cent on Monday after news emerged that one of its investors, AkademikerPension was planning to sell its stake.
- AkademikerPension has a holding worth over US$ 3 million, while Wizz Air has a market cap of around £4.25 billion as of Monday.
London Stock Exchange listed European low-cost airline Wizz Air Holdings PLC’s (LON: WIZZ) shares dropped nearly 1.5 per cent after news emerged that its investor, AkademikerPension was planning to sell its stake in the airline.
The decision of Akademiker was primarily due to alleged human and labour rights abuses towards Wizz Air’s staff.
What AkademikerPension wants?
AkademikerPension is a Danish US$ 23 billion pension fund. In December last year, it was among 14 investors that had urged the airline to allow its employees to form and join trade unions, stating that according to its research, it was a discouraging practice in breach of staff rights.
The fund said on 7 February, following a meeting with Wizz Air’s management team, that it did not see any indication that Wizz Air may rejig its practices.
The fund thus had already started divesting its stake in the airline. AkademikerPension’s stakeholding into Wizz Air amounts to over US$ 3 million.
Wizz Air denies the allegation
The airline said that it takes its employee engagement quite seriously and that it had confidence that the airline’s processes were functioning well.
The company added that it plans to hire a further 10,000 workers in the upcoming months and that it had already reinstated its cabin crew and other employees’ salaries to their pre-pandemic levels amid the sector’s recovery from the pandemic.
Wizz Air January 2022 traffic statistics
The airline’s January 2022 capacity (seats) rose by 220.3 per cent to 3,012,436, up from 940,410 in January 2021. While its rolling 12 months to 31 January 2022, capacity (seats) rose by 56.9 per cent to 30,959,602, up from 19,732,992 in the year prior.
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Wizz Air Holdings PLC’s (LON: WIZZ) share price performance
Wizz Air’s shares fell following the development. Its shares were trading at GBX 4,070.00, down by 1.43 per cent or 59.00 points on 7 February at 09:29 AM BST. Meanwhile, the FTSE 250 index stood at 21,773.86, up by 0.29 per cent.
The company has a market cap of £4,255.87 million as of 7 February 2022.
Image source: Refinitiv