TAP is to be sold under the 3.2 billion euros that the state has injected into the airline, according to the restructuring plan approved by Brussels. Infrastructure Minister Pedro Nuno Santos announced yesterday during a hearing in the Parliamentary Economy Committee at the request of Chega and PCP that “TAP has a certain value regardless of the injection and that is what counts”. According to what Dinheiro Vivo learned from sources related to the process, the price for the sale of 100% of TAP’s capital could be around two billion euros.
Still with no outlook on when and how the re-privatization of TAP will begin, the official was clear in decoupling the operation from government support provided to the airline: “Selling for less than the injection… we’ll see how the IPO will go.” An assessment will be made independent of the value injected into the company. This value will be determined when the IPO takes place”.
Confronted with Liberal Initiative deputy Carlos Guimarães Pinto, with potential losses to the government if TAP is sold at a value below the 3.2 billion state injection, Pedro Nuno Santos defended that, “when you invest in a public service, it does not wonder if it will return”. And he added: “The investment in TAP, the bailout, has an impact on the Portuguese economy from a macro point of view, it has an impact on wealth creation, there is a return for thousands of companies”.
The government’s reprivatization plan remains in place. “TAP was never intended to be 100% public,” said the Minister of Infrastructure, justifying the intervention in TAP as “a company that is too important to the national economy”. The next step “is to look for a partnership at the equity level”. In this regard, he states that “the best way to ensure TAP’s viability is to be part of a major aviation group”. There are currently three interested parties in the race to buy the company led by Christine Ourmières-Widener: Germany’s Lufthansa, France’s Dutch Air France-KLM and the IAG group, which owns Spain’s Iberia and British Airways.
In order for the re-privatization process to start, the restructuring plan, which provides for a final injection of EUR 990 million, in December, to make up for the EUR 3.2 billion in state aid, must first be successfully completed. This means that TAP closes the year 2022 with a loss of less than 54 million euros. However, the accounts for the first half of 2022 are not encouraging, although they have recovered in homologous terms: the losses amounted to 202 million euros, 148 million above the ceiling imposed by Brussels. Even though the operating result was positive at 4.4 million euros.
The minister is therefore cautiously looking at the possibility of reversing the wage cuts. Commenting on PCP deputy Paula Santos, who criticized the sacrifices made to workers, Pedro Nuno Santos said “there was no alternative”. “It is not possible to anticipate the end of the austerity measures, because TAP is still losing money,” he emphasized. “The alternative would be, instead of injecting 3.2 billion, the state should inject another 1.3 billion, which is the result of the enormous effort put in by workers, that is, the state 4.5 billion euros at the very least,” he added.
Without the sacrifice of employees, the cost of aid to the airline could be 4.5 billion euros, 1.3 billion more than expected.
As part of the restructuring plan, the official announced that the workers will lose the 5% stake in TAP SGPS. The public injection of €3.2 billion into the company “had to be converted into capital and the workers’ 5% stake eventually diluted,” he said.
Neeleman investigated
Suspected of a ruinous case involving the purchase of aircraft above market price, the Infrastructure Minister said during David Neeleman’s private administration that “the government forwarded an audit to the prosecution” requested by the airline because it had indications of being “pay more for the planes than the competitors”.
It involves a renegotiation of the contract with Airbus, conducted by Neeleman, for the purchase of 12 A350 aircraft, changing the order for the purchase of approximately 50 A320 neo and A330 neo aircraft. As reported by the weekly magazine Sol in 2019, the businessman received 70 million euros from Airbus for the contractual change, money that he will have used to acquire a 61% stake in the company, through Atlantic Gateway. Recall that Neeleman bought TAP in 2015 during the government Passos Coelho for only 10 million euros. In 2020, the state, already headed by António Costa, issued a check for 55 million euros to renationalise the company, a loss of 45 million euros.
The Office of the Attorney General confirmed to Dinheiro Vivo “the receipt of a participation presented by the Minister of Infrastructure and the Minister of Finance” which was “sent to the Central Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DCIAP) for analysis”.
Meanwhile, the President of the Republic heard of the matter in Dublin, the capital of Ireland. Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa defended that “anything discovered from older or less ancient administrations – and in this case it is a previous administration – that can clarify what should and should not be done is helpful”. He added: “Let’s wait for the outcome of this investigation.”
Salomé Pinto is a journalist for Dinheiro Vivo
Source: DN
