TAP will be nationalized by the Portuguese government
TAP will be nationalized because the government and private shareholders were unable to agree on the conditions for the State loan.
TAP will be nationalized, Expresso newspaper said in advance and ECO confirmed with sources close to the negotiations. The proposal with conditions required by the state to proceed with a loan of up to 1,200 million euros was flunked by the directors appointed by the Atlantic Gateway of David Neeleman and Humberto Pedrosa. And now, only a last-minute turn of events could prevent the publication of the nationalization decree, which is likely to happen tomorrow.
Atlantic Gateway, which has 45% of TAP, rejected the conditions this Monday night for the loan of up to 1.2 billion euros to be made by the Portuguese state. This loan had already been given the green light by the European Commission. And the main reason is the government’s demand for supplementary payments (217 million euros) made by private shareholders to be converted into share capital, a condition that David Neeleman does not accept.
This rejection led to the rupture of the negotiations between state and private shareholders, and TAP’s nationalization diploma will now go to the presidency of the Council of Ministers.
Minister for Infrastructure and Housing says “TAP is too important for the country to drop it.”
The Minister of Infrastructure said on Tuesday that TAP is “too important” for the country to “fall”, after being asked about a possible lack of agreement between shareholders and the option for nationalization of the company.
“TAP is too important for the country to drop it,” said minister Pedro Nuno Santos, after being questioned by PSD deputy Cristóvão Norte about a news item today from the Expresso newspaper, which said that TAP will be nationalized due to a lack of agreement between the state and private shareholders.
“When we are talking about TAP we have to realize that we cannot be limited to the results of TAP as a company, because we are talking about the company that is one of the largest national carriers. […] Almost 90% of our tourists arrive by air, half of them arrive by TAP. […] It is a tool for national development, for promoting employment,” he added.
