Ex-ABC chairman Maurice Newman appointed to Tigerair board Maurice Newman. Former ABC and ASX chairman Maurice Newman is one of several high-profile businessmen to be appointed to the board of Tigerair Australia following the completion of Virgin Australia's purchase of a 60 per cent stake. The six-member board of Tigerair Australia also includes Virgin chief executive John Borghetti as chairman and both Richard Branson's former right-hand man, David Baxby, and the chair of the Singapore-based Tigerair, Joseph Pillay, as directors. Mr Baxby moved from Geneva to Singapore early this year after he left Virgin Group, while Mr Pillay is highly regarded in aviation circles for his long contribution to Singapore Airlines. The other directors of the Australian budget airline are Virgin Australia chief financial officer Sankar Narayan and the boss of the Singapore-based Tigerair, Koay Peng Yen. The Singapore airline Tigerair holds the remaining 40 per cent of the Australian budget airline. Mr Borghetti said in a statement on Monday that the acquisition of a 60 per cent stake in Tigerair ""enables Virgin Australia to re-enter the budget travel market segment" in Australia. His appointment as chairman was flagged in August, when the deal was announced, but the directors were not named until Monday. As part of an attempt to resurrect its brand and operations here, the budget airline's name was changed last week from Tiger Airways to Tigerair across operations in Australia and Asia. Tigerair Australia chief executive Rob Sharp and his executives will present their long term plans to the board, including likely route changes, over the next few weeks. Analysts have speculated that Tigerair will redeploy the bulk of its capacity from the so-called ""golden triangle"" of Melbourne-Sydney-Brisbane to routes focused more on leisure travel. Shares in Virgin were down 1.2 per cent at 43 cents in trading on Monday afternoon while its rival, Qantas, fell 4.2 per cent to $1.26 - its lowest since November last year.