Hisane Masaki | Mar 28, 2011 9:05AM EDT
Japan Airlines flew out of bankruptcy protection on Monday, about 14 months after going into it.
"From this new starting point, JAL will unite as one as we work towards rebuilding the business," the Tokyo-based company said in a statement.
JAL had filed for bankruptcy protection in January 2010 under the Corporate Rehabilitation Law, which is similar to Chapter 11 in the U.S., marking one of the biggest corporate failures in Japanese history.
On Monday, the Tokyo District Court gave the nod to the unusually quick completion of JAL's court-backed rehabilitation process.
The airline also made a full repayment of rehabilitation debts totaling about $4.88 billion the same day with about $3.15 billion in new loans from 11 major creditor banks and cash in hand.
The 11 lenders include two government-affiliated banks -- the Development Bank of Japan and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation -- and nine domestic private banks.
In a bid to boost its financial base, JAL will also receive a total of $156.79 million in investment from eight companies, including Daiwa Securities Group and Kyocera.
JAL Chairman Kazuo Inamori, a founder of Kyocera, said at a press conference on Monday that he considers the new capital as sufficient and said the company has no plans for additional financing for now.
As a court-appointed administrator, Enterprise Turnaround Initiative of Japan, the government's turnaround body, has played a central role in the rehabilitation process for JAL.
JAL has carried out restructuring measures, including cutting 16,000 jobs, or about one-third of its total workforce, and terminating many loss-making domestic and international routes. JAL also stopped operating its own freighter flights at the end of last October.
These turnaround efforts paid off. The carrier eked out an operating profit of $1.96 billion during the first nine months of fiscal 2010, which started in April 2010.
Following the bankruptcy protection filing with the Tokyo District Court in January 2010, the Tokyo Stock Exchange delisted JAL shares the following month. JAL aims to relist by the end of 2012, but the struggling carrier may still run into turbulence due to Rising fuel costs and a sharp decline in traffic in the wake of the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit the northeastern part of Japan on March 11.
-- Contact Hisane Masaki at yiu45535@nifty.com.