The management of Portugal's Viana do Castelo Shipyard has sold the 'Atlântida’ to the Greek company ‘Thesarco Shipping’ for €13 million.
The administration launched an international public tender last March for the sale of the vessel which had been commissioned and then rejected by the regional government of the Açores.
The Greek bid was the highest by €5 million in a final frame of three bidders.
The Greeks will be notified of the decision and will have 15 days to proceed with the signing of the contract.
If Thesarco Shipping from Piraeus does not formalise the deal, the 'Atlântida' will be awarded to the second highest bidder, Mystic Cruise from the Douro Azul group for €8 million.
Thesarco Shipping is a trading and shipping company whose main activity is listed as trading and shipping commodities such as wheat from Russia and Ukraine and bulk salt from Egypt as well as bulk coal and coke from Ukraine and Russia. What it will do with a passenger ship is yet to be divulged.
In April the Minister of Defence announced that plans to privatise the Viana do Castelo Naval Shipyard (pictured) had been cancelled after an investigation conducted by the European Commission’s Directorate General for Competition concluded that the Portuguese government had subsidised the business by €180 million to keep it afloat between 2006 and 2011.
The government needed to find a strategy to keep the shipyard functioning with 500 jobs at stake.
The shipyard land was put up for sale, as was the ‘Atlântida’ which has been idle since 2011 after the Açores government rejected the ship as it was not as fast as promised, by one knot.
The ship is built to carry 750 passengers and 150 vehicles and had a contracted price of €50 million. The shipyard is paying back installments on the €40 million already advanced. If the Greeks pay up, they are welcome to the ship that has been costing nearly €2.5 million a year in insurance and maintenance.
