“This is a very favourable agreement for our intentions as government, but particularly for the country and for TAP”, he said, adding that the state “now has a real partnership with the private shareholder”.
“We always said there should be a private shareholder because of the need to capitalise TAP and make it stronger, but that the state must remain strong in the company and become the largest shareholder with 50 percent of the capital.
The agreement signed by the government and the private consortium that is currently the majority shareholder stipulates that the state gets 50 percent of the capital, the private shareholder 45 percent plus any shares that are not sold to the workers in a public offering to the staff.
Pedro Marques insisted that “the state will always have half the company’s capital and half the board members, but with a casting vote by the state”.
The minister said that “this is an highly important alteration compared with the earlier stage of the privatisation where the right-wing parties sold the majority of the capital to the private shareholders, but in two years’ time they could buy the rest of the shares and the state would be left with nothing”.
The minister said the deal would cost the government 1.9 million euros, explaining that the shares allowing the government to have 50 percent would be returned and the government would pay back 1.9 million euros of the 10 million euros the private consortium invested in the shares.