ROME —
German airline Lufthansa is set to take a 40
percent stake in Italian national carrier
ITA Airways, Italy's Il Foglio
newspaper reported Saturday, suggesting the deal could be announced next week.
اضافة اعلان
A spokesman for ITA, which was formed out of the ashes of
loss-making Alitalia, declined to comment but said a strategic plan would be
presented to the company's board on January 31.
The spokesman added that a data room — a secure place to
store key financial documents, often to allow due diligence before a merger or
acquisition — would be opened "in the following days".
According to Il Foglio, Lufthansa will buy 40 percent of ITA
in a deal that includes making Rome's Fiumicino airport a hub for direct
flights to Africa and part of the US route.
It said the deal would need approval from the European
Commission.
Loss-making Alitalia was placed under state administration
in 2017 but Italy struggled to find an investor to take it over. The situation
was only exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic that grounded airlines
worldwide.
Lufthansa had long been touted as a potential partner, but a
rescue attempt fell through in early 2020. It declined to comment on Il
Foglio's report.
Lufthansa said in November it had finished repaying a
9-billion-euro government bailout that saved it from bankruptcy at the height
of pandemic travel curbs.
The German government is set to sell the stake it took in
Lufthansa as part of the rescue deal by October 2023, the group added. The
stake has already been lowered from 20 to 14 percent.
Read more Business
.jpg)
.jpg)
