Portuguese government hones in on two bids for its national airline TAP

For an airline which became very profitable during the first decade of the new millennium it is a massive turnaround seeing it now being sold at a time when it is carrying debt in excess of €1bn. The airline now has to be sold in order to continue operating as European regulations will not allow any additional state aid from the government. In truth it is hoped that future investors will actually rid the state of any debt relating to the airline. An attempt to offload the airline was unsuccessful in 2012, while continued attempts to sell the airline have led to considerable unrest among the airline’s staff. At the beginning of this month the airline was subject to a 10-day strike by pilots which further increased the airline’s financial woes. The strike was about the state remaining a shareholder in order to guarantee that there would be no mass layoffs when a major stake was sold off.
As a result the government are going to retain a 34% share of the airline for at least the next two years and are aiming to sell off 61% in the immediate future, though no actual deadline has been set. Portugal’s Transport Secretary, Sergio Monteiro, has confirmed that bids by two consortia are being considered, one being Gateway, which comprises a holding company of American-Brazilian investor David Neeleman and Portuguese bus company owner Humberto Pedrosa. Neeleman is the founder of US airline JetBlue and also is the Chief Executive of Azul Brazilian Airlines. The second bidder is SAGEF, led by Brazilian-Colombian investor German Efromovich, who controls Latin America’s airline Avianca through Synergy, his holding company. Efromovich was the unsuccessful bidder back in 2012 where his offer was rejected owing to a lack of financial guarantees. Monteiro also revealed to a news briefing that a third bid from a holding company of Portuguese investor and aristocrat Miguel Pais de Amaral has been rejected as the bid he had presented was considered not to be a binding one.
TAP was originally launched in 1945 under the name Secção de Transportes Aéreos. According to their website “..the first commercial Lisbon-Madrid service began on 19 September 1946, while on 31 December the “Imperial Airline” was launched, flying between Lisbon, Luanda and Lourenço Marques, a return journey of 24,540 kilometres that took a total of 15 days and included 12 stopovers. Other routes launched before the end of the 1940s included: Paris (1948), London (1949) and Seville (1948).” Currently TAP operates a fleet of 61 Airbus planes providing 2,500 flights to and from 82 destinations in 35 countries. In addition it operates a mix of 16 other Fokker, Embraer and ATR aircraft through its regional airline PGA (Portugalia Airlines).