TAP received only one bid for the purchase of catering company

TAP received only one bid for the purchase of its 51% stake in Cateringpor. According to the tender information, the bid came from Switzerland’s Gate Gourmet, which is part of the Gate Group and already owns the remaining 49% of the company.

The Gate Group is present in 60 countries, employs more than 45,000 people and had revenues of 5.21 billion Swiss francs in 2024, equivalent to 5.7 billion euros. It is owned equally by Temasek, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, and Asian investment manager RRJ Capital. It originated in the catering division of the former Swissair and was separated from the Swiss airline in 1992 as part of a restructuring plan.

The public tender for the sale of the 357,000 shares it holds in Cateringpor’s share capital was announced by TAP on 30 December 2025. The process also includes a proposal with the contractual conditions for the continuation of catering services after the sale. The base price was €9,567,145, and a minimum of five years’ experience in the sector and in operations at airports of a category equal to or higher than Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado Airport was required.

TAP SA had purchased Cateringpor from TAP SGPS in January 2025 and would certainly have expected a more competitive sale. The deadline for submitting bids was postponed by one week, to 20 February, at the request of Turkish catering company Sancak Inflight. However, only Gate Gourmet, owner of the remaining 49%, submitted a bid. ECO questioned the latter and TAP, but received no response by the time this article was published.

The sale of Cateringpor, which was excluded from the scope of TAP’s privatisation, should have taken place by the end of 2025, as provided for in the restructuring plan. The same applies to the sale of the airline’s 49.9% stake in SPdH, formerly Groundforce, which now operates under the Menzies brand after acquiring the remaining 51.1%. This process is shrouded in uncertainty after SPdH lost the tender for licences at Lisbon, Porto and Faro airports, calling into question the company’s future.

The delay led the Portuguese Government to ask the European Commission for a six-month postponement of the deadline for completing the restructuring plan. Brussels accepted, but with conditions: TAP was obliged to return €25 million of the €2.55 billion it received under the restructuring plan agreed with the EU executive in December 2021, which must be paid by the end of June, as reported on Monday by the Público newspaper.

According to the European Commission’s decision, the Portuguese flag carrier will also have to continue to comply with the pre-existing limit of 99 aircraft for its operating fleet. There are also restrictions on commercial activity.

“Although, under the purchase agreement signed with Airbus, TAP is still due to receive four additional aircraft by the end of June 2026, these will not be used to expand its commercial network, due to the network freeze imposed by Portugal and applicable until the remaining disposals are fully completed”, it notes.

In practice, until it has fulfilled its commitments, TAP will not be able to increase the number of routes (city pairs) it operates. The airline is also prevented from making acquisitions.

The privatisation of more than 51% of Azores Airlines and the handling unit of the SATA group should also have been completed by the end of 2025, but the Government of the Autonomous Region of the Azores requested that the sale be postponed until the end of this year.

Once again, concessions had to be made: Portugal agreed to reduce the amount of state aid of €453.25 million granted to the Azorean carrier under the restructuring plan in 2022 by €3 million. The amount will have to be paid by SATA to the State by December 2026. The company will also have its fleet limited to 14 aircraft – six for SATA Air Azores, which operates inter-island flights, following the sale of Azores Airlines.