Olympic Airlines tender sale fails
Greece’s joint ministerial privatization committee, including Economy and Finance Minister Yiannis Papathanassiou (second from right) and Develpment Minister Costis Hatzidakis (second from left), met late yesterday to discuss the privatization of Olympic Airlines. The committee decided to call off the tender process, as the bids submitted by interested buyers for Olympic Airlines were too low. ‘The bids that were submitted do not meet our demands,’ Hatzidakis told reporters. ‘We are addressing an open proposal to Greek business groups for the sale of Olympic through immediate negotiations.’ Greek governments have spent years seeking private investors to take over Olympic Airlines, which is riddled with debt, but the process was complicated by the European Commission’s demand that the company repay unlawfully disbursed state aid.
