The government has received three bids for the purchase of 61% of Portugal’s state airline TAP.
Just minutes before today’s 5pm deadline, bids were received from David Neeleman and Germán Efromovich as expected but also from Portuguese 'golden boy' businessman Pais do Amaral.
The proposal from Efromovich was made by his personal holding company, Synergy which also fielded his ultimately unsuccessful bid when last the government tried to sell the ailing airline.
The Neeleman bid was also via a holding company, DGN. The American businessman has long experience in creating and leading airlines and currently owns the Brazilian carrier Azul.
Pais do Amaral’s bid was through Quifel Holdings. He worked at Goldman Sachs and has venture capital experience as well as media holdings covering television, television production, Internet, radio, music production and press.
The government has pledged quickly to decide the winner of a stake of up to 61% of the national airline.
The remaining chunk of 34% will be held by the government on behalf of the taxpayer for at least two years and the remaining 5% has been earmarked for TAP employees.
Comments
On TV there was clear proof that the lean and mean Brazilian airways owners were running their planes with half or a third of the number TAP is.
And so much of the staffing, like baggage handling, maintenance and piloting, is already substantially covered by the new owners ...
No one can begin to claim that the 300 odd TAP pilots on 100 thousand euros a year flying 70 odd planes were that busy. And how many of the routes will be 'over flown' and now unprofitable ?