Tender for Galileo
The government’s advisers on the sell-off of cash-strapped Olympic Airways’s non-core assets said late on Friday they had opened a tender for the sale of a majority stake in electronic ticket reservation company Galileo Hellas. Deloitte & Touche Finance, which advises the government on the sale of Olympic’s subsidiaries and holdings, said in a statement that it had invited major telecommunications and information technology companies in Greece to express their interest in Galileo Hellas by January 17. Candidates short-listed will then be invited to talks, the advisers said. Companies approached may team up to bid for Galileo. Greece said in August that Galileo Hellas would be the next to be sold as it jettisons Olympic’s non-flying businesses to raise cash and make the ailing carrier more attractive to potential buyers. Galileo Hellas has a network connecting 1,100 travel offices in Greece, Cyprus, Israel and the Balkans with 2,000 terminals. Set up by Olympic in 1991, its sales are almost exclusively related to air ticket reservations. It has a 48-percent market share in Greece.
