All three suitors still committed to tabling bids for OLP
With one eye on the country’s negotiations with its creditors, state sell-off fund TAIPED is proceeding with the tender for the controlling stake in Piraeus Port Authority (OLP), with a likely deadline for the submission of binding offers on September 17.
All three candidate buyers for the stake in the company that manages and exploits Greece’s main port – Cosco Pacific, AP Moller-Maersk and International Container Terminal Services – have reaffirmed their interest. Cosco sources told Kathimerini that the Chinese firm “views favorably and with trust the new administration of TAIPED and the procedures it has put into action.” They also expressed the wish that “the steps the government has made for the restart of the tender are honest.”
On the other hand, Cosco appears particularly concerned about the fact that the Council of State has postponed the hearing of the case brought by Piraeus entities against the transfer of OLP SA shares from the state to TAIPED for a third time. Worse, it will now be heard by the country’s highest administrative court on October 6, which is after the deadline for the submission of binding offers. Concerns are focused on “whether this development might be used as an indirect way to delay further the completion of the tender.”
TAIPED and the ministries involved are now processing the new master concession contract for OLP that the strategic investor to be chosen will sign, which Alternate Minister for Shipping Thodoris Dritsas also implied last week. This contract will safeguard the interests of the state and determine the annual price that currently amounts to 2 percent of OLP’s turnover. The most likely scenario provides for an increase to 3.5 percent.
The tender will concern the concession of 51 percent of OLP, while the remaining 16 percent from the original offering of 67 percent will be conceded in the long term on the condition that the investor will have proceeded with the implementation of the investment it will promise upon signing the contract.
The OLP process will be followed by the offers for Thessaloniki Port Authority in the context of the unfolding tender. TAIPED is also proceeding with the planning for the utilization model for 10 other ports, as well as alternative solutions for the de facto stale tender concerning the marinas of Alimos, Pylos and Chios.
An indispensable condition for the fruition of the process is that the SYRIZA-led government reaches an agreement with its creditors, because otherwise investor interest will weaken for good, with OLP being the sole exception, TAIPED officials estimate.
