The Secretary of State for Transport, Sérgio Monteiro, said today that the government is "creating the conditions" for the privatisation of TAP and will proceed "as soon as possible, perhaps in the first quarter of 2014.”
Monteiro said the government will only go ahead “when the conditions are right from the point of view of competitiveness in the market.”
"These conditions are assessed by the Government and not by any of the candidates," said Monteiro, commenting on recent statements by Gérman Efromovich, the only potential buyer of TAP whose proposal controversially was rejected by the Government in 2012.
Sérgio Monteiro continued, "we are very comfortable with the situation we have at this point with TAP. We know we need to have proper competition in the market to reopen the sales process, we can not return to a situation where only one candidate is after our company."
The minister pointed out that TAP is now "worth more this year than last year" and is still growing. Despite recent speculation that TAP could be floated in the Lisbon stock exchange, the company president dismissed this hypothesis, at least initially.
A time will come when the continous fudging of the TAP sale will be an embarassment. The Troika is expacting a sale, the 2012 sale to a field of one buyer was botched, the constant assurance of 'soon' does nothing to settle the market or draw potential buyers closer.
Morale at TAP has remained good due to strong management but this can not last when the government may or may not sell the company some time soon, later, or not at all.
Monteiro's content free statements are beneath him and he needs to set a date for the sale or floatation of TAP and stick to it.
A polite but clearly miffed Efromovich is now pondering the purchase of Alitalia or the Polish airline LOT. He said that these two companies are for sale but he might even set up a new airline from scratch. The decision, according to the businessman, will be taken next February
Fernando Pinto, the TAP boss, reiterated that the government may relaunch the privatisation process for TAP next spring and added that the national airline "runs the risk of attracting no interest."
