Portugal’s prime minister is delighted that there have been "three firm proposals" to buy the state airline TAP.
Commenting that “it would be bad” if the sale had not gone through before the end of the current mandate as he had made a promise that TAP would be sold off.
"I am pleased that there have been three competitors who submitted firm proposals for the acquisition of TAP,"
When asked if he had the moral legitimacy to complete the privatisation of the airline before the next government, Passos Coelho said,
"What would be bad is the opposite, it we had completed our term of office without being able to do what we said we would do, which was to complete this privatisation process."
On Friday the Secretary of State for Transport confirmed that he had received three binding bids for the purchase of TAP, but not revealing any names.
The offers were from David Neeleman, Gérman Efrómovich and Miguel Pais do Amaral.
Passos Coelho and his ministers now will have enough time to prepare their statements when the bid is revealed to be the lowest end of expectations.
TAP has negative equity of €500 million and both the Neeleman and Efrómovich bids included a €300-€350 million capital increase which would leave the company technically bankrupt.
As for the winner buying the shares owned by the public, expect offers of between €20 million and €35 million.
There is much more detail to the deals on the table as two of the bidders already own airlines which can be blended into the TAP brand.
The government wants to announce the winner as soon as it has seen the offer details and worked out the best one, bearing in mind that the taxpayer will continue to own 34% of the company for at least two years.
The TAP problem soon will be managed by the private sector and the Portuguese taxpayer losses over the years can be put down to experience, albeit a bad one.
The TAP management under Fernando Pinto and the government have allowed the airline to fly into problem after problem without getting to grips with the fundamental issues affecting state airlines in the 21st century.
Any sale that stems taxpayer losses could be viewed as a result because the time has long passed when a TAP sale could have yielded a profit.
Fernando Pinto is unlikely to remain as president of TAP as his performance has been less than adequate, being recruited to prepare the airline for sale and offering it to the market at a low point in the carrier's history.
