EY and Banco Finantia to evaluate TAP for privatisation
The consultant EY and Banco Finantia have been selected by Parpública, the umbrella holding that manages Portuguese public companies, to conduct two independent evaluations of TAP in preparation for its privatisation.
The evaluations were approved on April 27 by the Council of Ministers in what was the first step in the reprivatisation operation which the government wants to have completed by the end of the year.
The next step will be the approval of a decree-law for reprivatisation that the minister of Finances believes will happen this month.
The last time the airline was valued was in June 2019 when Deutsche Bank which valued the company at between €637 million and €1.035Bn as part of the process to disperse capital on the stock market which did not go forward.
Before, in the reprivatisation of 2015, PwC and Deloitte had valued TAP at between -€34 million and €-512 million.
Fernando Medina confirmed at the parliamentary inquiry into the management at TAP that the outline law would define “the criteria of the airline’s strategic nature for the country” and which “gave value to the role of TAP as an important driver for economic growth.
That means maintaining Lisbon airport as a hub, retaining the company’s own independence and a development project for the company’s own expansion”.
Prime Minister António Costa has also made it clear that the Sate will maintain a capital share in the airline.
There are three interested parties in the reprivatisation of TAP. IAG, the owner of British Airways and Iberia, Lufthansa and Air France-KLM.