Cebu Air, the airline unit of listed holding firm JG Summit Holdings Inc., will still pursue its maiden offering of shares to the public but this remains hinged on the right timing, JG Summit founder and chairman emeritus John Gokongwei Jr. said.

“We’re pursuing it. But now is not exactly the best time to do it,” he told reporters on the sidelines of A. Soriano Corp.’s annual shareholders meeting yesterday.

Gokongwei sits as a director of the Anscor board.

Gokongwei said the timing for an IPO (initial public offering) has to be right but didn’t say whether the IPO could still be undertaken within the year.

Cebu Air, which carries the Cebu Pacific brand, in consultation with its underwriters, decided to postpone indefinitely its IPO earlier this year due to the “extreme volatility in global equity markets, despite positive feedback from international and domestic investors.”

UBS is the sole international underwriter, bookrunner and lead manager of the IPO while ING Bank and First Metro Investment  Corp. are the joint domestic lead underwriters.

Citing as another reason for delaying the IPO, Cebu Air said the prevailing market conditions were not favorable to maximizing shareholder value.

Cebu Air said the delay, however, would not have any adverse effect on the company’s expansion plans.

Cebu Air hoped to raise up to P12.87 billion from the sale of 135.46 million shares at a maximum price of P95 each share. The company planned  to sell 70 percent of the offer shares to foreign investors with the  listing of the shares originally scheduled on Feb. 8.

The company planned to use the proceeds from the offering to fund the acquisition of additional aircraft,  working capital requirements and other general corporate purposes.

Cebu Air is one of the fastest-growing low-cost carriers in the Asia-Pacific region in terms of passenger traffic growth, which increased at a rate of approximately 75 percent for the period October 2006 to September 2007.

From its current 15 aircraft, which includes 10 Airbus A319 and five A320s, Cebu Air intends to increase its fleet size to  between 34 and 39.

The firm’s expansion includes the acquisition of up to 14 new ATR turboprop aircraft, including six for which it has placed firm orders (which will be delivered from early 2008 to early 2009), with rolling options for  another four aircraft.