The bidding opened in March, with a 90-day deadline to submit proposals (until June 20), but the deadline will now be “extended until July 31.”
The Azores regional Treasury Secretary said this Friday that the privatization process of the Azores Airlines airline should not suffer delays after the extension of the deadline for the submission of proposals.
“We do not estimate that it can delay the process, the schedules are defined and the jury will naturally take into account this postponement of the delivery of all the processes,” said the regional secretary of Finance, Planning and Public Administration of the Azores, Duarte. Freitas, adding that “The rest of the processing will be carried out within the deadlines that were estimated.”
The minister was speaking in Angra do Heroísmo, on Terceira Island, on the sidelines of reading the statement of the Governing Council (PSD/CDS-PP/PPM), meeting in Ponta Delgada, on Thursday, which approved changes in the terms of reference which establishes the terms and conditions of the public tender for the sale of the participation in the share capital of Azores Airlines.
The tender was opened in March, with a 90-day deadline for the submission of proposals (until June 20), but the deadline now it will “extend until July 31”following “formal and informal requests” from potential stakeholders.
“The Government does not interfere in the bidding process in any way, but the information that the board of directors of the tenure gave us was that there were more than 30 entities that proposed the terms of reference, some of them will naturally present firm proposals, we hope, but some asked that the term be extended”, said the regional Treasury Secretary.
On March 7, the Azores executive revealed that the terms of reference for the privatization of Azores Airlines provided for a sale of a “minimum” of 51% and a “maximum” of 85% of the company’s share capital.
In June, the European Commission approved a Portuguese state aid to support the restructuring of the airline worth 453.25 million euros in loans and state guarantees, providing for “remedies” such as a reorganization of the structure and the divestment of a stake from control (51%) in Azores. Airlines, the SATA group company in charge of flights outside the archipelago.
Source: Observadora
