TAP privatisation bill to be approved next week

The Prime Minister announced on Tuesday that the government will approve a law that will define the criteria for the privatisation of TAP next week at the next Council of Ministers meeting on September 28.

At a debate in parliament, the prime minister underscored that the European Commission had recognised that the government has been successfully implementing the airline’s restructuring plan.
“Next week we will approve the bill that establishes the TAP privatisation framework, protecting the company and the interests of Portugal and the Portuguese”.
The Prime Minister recalled that in 2022 “TAP had made a profit” and transported 7.6 million passengers in the first half, achieving 96% of the passengers carried in the pre-pandemic period of 2019”.
He stressed the strategic importance of TAP and admitted “selling part or all of TAP “taking Portugal’s interests on board”.
The TAP sale process began in April when the Council of Ministers approved a resolution that mandated the Ministry of Finances and Parpública – the holding that controls Portugal’s public companies — to begin valuing the airline by two independent entities – EY and Finantia.
Although this latest valuation is not known, the last valuation made in 2019 by Deutsche Bank suggested figures of between €637 million and €1.035 million as part of a possible dispersal of the company’s capital on the stock market that never advanced.
Before its previous privatisation in 2015, PwC and Deloitte valued TAP at between -€34 million and -€512 million.