LISBON: Portugal should receive at least €354 million for the sale of a 61% stake in state airline TAP, and potentially as much as €488 million, depending on the company’s performance, the government said on Thursday, after it decided to accept a bid from Gateway, a joint venture between a US-Brazilian and a Portuguese investor.
The value of the deal is “measured by capitalisation, by the price paid for the shares and for the option to buy and sell”, the secretary of state for the treasury, Isabel Castelo Branco, said at a news conference following the cabinet meeting where the decision was taken. The final amount, she explained, would only become clear two years from now.
Earlier, the secretary of state for transport, Sérgio Monteiro, said that while the amount involved was relatively small, the terms of the privatisation meant that much-needed capital would be injected into the company.
The government decided at Thursday’s weekly cabinet meeting to sell TAP to Gateway – which is jointly held by US-Brazilian David Neeleman, owner of Brazil’s third-largest airline, and Humberto Pedrosa, the chairman of Portugal’s leading coach operator – rather than to Germán Efromovich, the Bolivian-born owner of another Brazilian airline and the only other bidder at this stage.
