Portugal re-launched the long-delayed privatisation of TAP in July, aiming to sell a 44.9% stake to a strategic airline partner able to expand the carrier’s global reach and competitiveness
International News via Reuters:
Germany’s Lufthansa became the second major European airline after Air France-KLM to confirm a non-binding bid for a minority stake in Portugal’s flag carrier TAP on Thursday, as Lisbon moves ahead with its privatisation plans.
Portugal re-launched the long-delayed privatisation of TAP in July, aiming to sell a 44.9% stake to a strategic airline partner able to expand the carrier’s global reach and competitiveness, with a further 5% earmarked for TAP employees.
A Lufthansa spokesperson told Reuters the airline had submitted an offer, following an earlier move by Franco-Dutch group Air France-KLM.
British Airways-owner IAG has also shown initial interest in TAP.
OFFERS MUST INCLUDE STRATEGIC PLAN
The non-binding offers, due by 5 p.m. (1600 GMT) on Thursday, must include a suggested price for the TAP stake, an industrial and strategic plan, and expected synergies.
Neither Air France-KLM nor Lufthansa disclosed the price offered, and the German airline issued no public statement.
“Our ambition is to strengthen operations in Lisbon while developing connectivity elsewhere in Portugal, including Porto,” Air France-KLM CEO Benjamin Smith said in a statement earlier.
TAP’s key appeal lies in its prime and lucrative slots connecting its Lisbon hub with Brazil, Portuguese-speaking African countries and the United States, routes the government intends to preserve and expand.
TAP A ‘NATURAL FIT’ FOR AIR FRANCE-KLM
Smith said that “TAP is a natural fit” within Air France-KLM’s multi-hub strategy, with Lisbon becoming its sole southern European hub, linking the Americas and Africa.
In November, Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr said his group would be TAP’s “best partner,” and a tie-up would bolster Lisbon’s role as an Atlantic hub linking the Americas and Africa.
Under the privatisation decree, the government may later sell its remaining 50.1% to the buyer of the minority stake now on offer.
The next step is for the state holding company Parpublica, which handles the bidding, to prepare within 30 days a report on each proposal’s merits for the government. It will then select the most suitable non-binding offers and invite those bidders to submit binding proposals within 90 days.
The privatisation is expected to conclude in the second half of 2026.
Reporting by Sergio Goncalves, Klaus Lauer and Gianluca Lo Nostro; Editing by Milla Nissi-Prussak, Tomasz Janowski and Bernadette Baum
