There privatization of TAP Air Portugal will take months and should only be completed next yearPortuguese Finance Minister Fernando Medina said on Friday.
The sales process – a priori at German group Lufthansa– will start in October, instead of starting in July as originally planned. “The government will work to approve the privatization as quickly as possible, but this is legally dependent on the establishment of the value of the airline by two independent advisers“, explained the minister.
“This is a massive transaction by national and even international standards… The privatization process will take a few months and will not be completed until 2023“, summed up the minister. For the time being, the Lisbon government has just hired the consulting firm Ernst & Young and the Portuguese bank Banco Finantia to assess the assets of TAP Air Portugal.
The Portuguese public airline recorded a net loss of 57.4 million euros in the first quarter of this year, a decrease of more than 50% compared to the loss of the previous year, thanks to the increase in the Number of passengers. It carried 7.58 million passengers in the first half of this year, a 30% increase on the previous year, but still slightly below pre-Covid levels.
