Madalena, Portugal, March 21, 2025 (Lusa) - The Azorean Regional Government said on Friday that the conditions were met to maintain the privatisation process of the airline SATA Internacional - Azores Airlines and decided that it "should continue".
"The New Tour/MS Aviation [NT/MS] group, a competitor in the SATA International privatisation process, has shown its willingness to improve its proposal financially during the negotiation phase, increasing the overall price to €15.2 million and reinforcing the criterion of contributing to the strengthening of SATA's financial capacity," the vice-president of the regional government, Artur Lima, said today.
The government official, who read out the communiqué from the Council of Government, which met today in the town of Madalena as part of a statutory visit to the island of Pico, said that SATA's board of directors, in a request addressed to the Azorean government, "once again asked for new guidance on how to proceed" with the tender process.
According to Artur Lima, the company's management informed the Azorean government that "on 28 February 2025, the NT/MS group presented a request in which it provided SATA's board of directors with information on the identity of the Portuguese natural persons - Carlos Manuel Antunes Tavares Dias and Paulo José Angélica Pereira da Silva - who, if an improved proposal is presented, will be part of the NT/MS group".
The group of companies "also said that the sum of the shareholdings held by the two new members will total 49% of the company's share capital that will hold the SATA Internacional stake".
As a result, the government of the Azores decided that "since the conditions are met to maintain the privatisation process of SATA Internacional - Azores Airlines, it should continue".
The president of the Azores government said on Wednesday that the regional government would today analyse the proposal by the Newtour/MS Aviation consortium to acquire 76% of the capital of Azores Airlines for €15.2 million.
The newspaper Açoriano Oriental reported that day that the consortium bidding for the privatisation of Azores Airlines also proposes the entry of Carlos Tavares (former CEO of the car company Stellantis) and Paulo Pereira da Silva (a businessman linked to tourism and the agri-food industry in the Douro) as partners.
Artur Lima also told journalists that if the privatisation process for Azores Airlines goes well and is concluded, the losses and staff costs will cease to exist, "which translates into a defence of public money and the public interest" and a good measure for the Autonomous Region of the Azores and "a good step for public finances.
He recalled that a different situation occurred with the privatisation of SaúdeAçor, when the region, led by the PS, "was left with liabilities of one billion euros", employees and all the running costs.
"It was a negative process for the region and public finances. This [SATA] will be the opposite. We will have to internalise the €400 million [in liabilities], but we will no longer have the operating costs or all the other costs associated with the airline," he explained.
On 9 December 2024, the president of the government of the Azores confirmed that SATA and the Newtour/MS Aviation consortium were negotiating the privatisation of Azores Airlines and said that the region would assume the airline's debt.
In June 2022, the European Commission approved Portuguese state aid to support the airline's restructuring to the tune of €453.25 million in state loans and guarantees, providing for measures such as a reorganisation of the structure and the divestment of a controlling stake (51%).
ASR/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
