TAP valuations to be handed to the government on March 17

Banco Finantia and EY will deliver their valuations for Portugal’s national airline TAP to the Portuguese government on March 17 in preparation for the airline’s total or part privatisation.

The valuations will be handed to Parpública, the umbrella group that controls Portugal’s publicly owned companies.

Finantia and EY have been working on the valuations for the airline since the beginning of this year.

Both entities had previously made a valuation on TAP for the previous PS socialist government of António Costa in 2023 which has made their current task easier since much of the work now involves updating their previous estimates.

In 2023 TAP was estimated to be worth between €800 million and €1.1Bn.

In order to get the agreement of the Portuguese parliament, particularly the PS, it seems likely that the government is likely to opt for selling a minority share of the airline’s capital (49%) as has been suggested by the country’s Minister of Infrastructure, Miguel Pinto Luz.

The reason? “We can’t run the risk of privatizing the airline and then another government re-nationalising it”, he has said.

A former TAP president, Fernando Pinto, who ran the airline from 2000 to 2017, believes that the company should be privatized.

“I think they should go ahead with privatization. With a good partner it would be a great deal”, he said to a parliamentary commission on Wednesday regarding the airline’s accounts when he led the company.

At present there are three strong candidates interested in the airline: Lufthansa, Air France-KLM and IAG. (British Airways and Iberia)