Administrators to propose liquidation of former TAP SGPS. Assets cover only a tiny fraction of the debt
Closure and liquidation are considered inevitable as the company is no longer active. TAP and Azul are claiming debts in excess of €1.28 billion. Assets amount to less than €30 million.
Liquidation is the almost certain fate of the former TAP SGPS, SIAVILO SGPS, since the company is no longer active. This will be the proposal that the insolvency administrators will present to creditors at the meeting scheduled for Thursday, ECO learned from a source familiar with the process.
The meeting, which will bring together the half-dozen creditors who have claimed credits from SIAVILO, will consider the report prepared by the insolvency administrators. In addition to analysing the debtor’s accounting status, the document includes an indication of the prospects for maintaining the company.
However, in recent years, the former TAP SGPS has lost its assets and is now without any activity, hence the only option is liquidation.
TAP SGPS, renamed Siavilo at the beginning of the year, saw its last assets sold to TAP SA in January: the entirety of Portugália, 51% of Cateringpor and 100% of UCS, the group’s healthcare company.
The holding company had already ceased to hold any stake in TAP SA in 2021, due to public capital injections into the company that owns the airline. In June 2024, it also ceased to be a shareholder in the former Groundforce, now Menzies Aviation, as part of the insolvency process.
What assets does Siavilo still have? A bank deposit of €11.8 million and another of €12 million in TAPGER, which it owns 100%, but which is also no longer active.
These €23.8 million in deposits are a tiny sum compared to the debts claimed. The exact final amount has yet to be determined, but TAP SA alone, which filed for insolvency on 6 August, is claiming €1.104 billion in credits, already provisioned.
Added to this amount is €235.26 million owed to Parpública and Azul, the two underwriters of the convertible bond issue made in 2012. The largest share, €176.9 million, is claimed by the Brazilian airline, which currently has a legal dispute with TAP.
Facing financial difficulties at the time, Azul attempted to negotiate with TAP in the summer of 2024 for early repayment of the bonds at a value lower than the total debt. No agreement was reached, and the Brazilian airline demanded that TAP recognise the guarantees provided in the bond loan, which include the Miles & Go customer loyalty programme.
The Portuguese airline’s board of directors rejected this and in November filed a lawsuit seeking the annulment of the guarantees, arguing that this was not senior debt but shareholder loans, as David Neeleman was at the time both a shareholder of TAP SGPS and the largest shareholder of Azul — an argument that the Brazilian airline rejects and has already contested.
In April, a bondholders’ meeting was held at which a resolution proposed by Azul was approved, formally declaring TAP SGPS in default and triggering a request for repayment of the debt, amounting to €176.9 million. A payment note was sent by Banco Montepio on 27 May, which the public holding company did not pay, as reported by ECO.
The governing bodies of TAP SGPS resigned en masse between the end of March and the beginning of June. On 10 July, the insolvency application for the now SIAVILO was filed, declared on 6 August.
The Government has already acknowledged that the debt owed to Azul is one of the contingencies that penalise TAP’s value in the privatisation process. In July, the Minister for Infrastructure stated that he had mandated TAP’s board of directors to negotiate with Azul and reiterated that the case should be “settled in court”.
