Parpública confirms it has received three Manifestation of Interest in TAP privatisation

Parpública, the holding that controls Portugal’s public companies, has confirmed that it has received three Manifestations of Interest in the TAP privatization process and will advance to the next stage of evaluating if the interested parties meet the requirements set out in the terms and conditions of sale brochure.

On Friday, the International Airlines Group (IAG) which holds Iberia and British Airways among other companies, informed that it had made a formal Manifestation of Interest in the privatisation joining AirFrance-KLM and Lufthansa which also formally showed interest on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively.

“Within the scope of the first stage of the process of selling 44.9% of TAP, SA’s capital, enshrined in Article 11 of the Resolution of the Council of Ministers (RCM) no. 141 – B/2025, PARPÚBLICA, SGPS announces that it has received three declarations of interest in participating in the aforementioned operation,” it said in a statement.

“According to paragraph 4 of the same article of the RCM, PARPÚBLICA now has 20 days to prepare, in a reasoned manner, a descriptive report of the interested parties that submitted the respective declarations of expression of interest, evaluating their compliance with the participation requirements provided for in paragraph 1 of article 5 of this law,” it said.

The minister of Infrastructures, Miguel Pinto Luz confirmed on Friday that the three Manifestations of Interest from the three largest European airline groups were “predictable” because of the financial results achieved by TAP for the first three quarters of the year.

TAP’s recurring operational results increased 4.3%, reaching €3.05Bn for the first nine months of 2025 while EBITDA reached €592 million, a fall of 11% on the same period last year. Operational results fell 32.5% to €227.2 million.

Nevertheless, the summer brought in profits of €55.2 million to September even though profitability fell.