FRANKFURT: Lufthansa is in separate talks about eventually acquiring the remaining majority stake in Portugal's flag carrier TAP Air Portugal from the government, the German airline group's finance chief said Thursday.
Under that process, the Portuguese government could become a Lufthansa shareholder with a stake of up to 5%, Chief Financial Officer Till Streichert said.
The comments came a day after Portugal's government chose Lufthansa over rival Air France-KLM to buy a stake in TAP of up to 49.9% for 1.2 billion euros ($1.35 billion).
Portuguese Prime Minister Luis Montenegro said Lufthansa outbid Air France-KLM, the only other company in the race. Some reports on the deal put the initial stake at 44.9%, with the government setting aside 5% for TAP's more than 9,000 employees to buy shares.
The sale, years in the making and repeatedly delayed, is the latest step in the consolidation of Europe's airline industry. Montenegro said the government may complete TAP's privatization by 2028.
Streichert said he expects the deal to close in the first half of 2028 and to produce 450 million euros in synergies. It still requires approval from European Union regulators.
Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr told journalists the deal was "a perfect fit" for the group, which already owns Austrian Airlines, ITA Airways and SWISS, among other carriers.
Spohr said the transaction should be easier for the EU to approve than Lufthansa's purchase of Italy's ITA, whose turnaround is still ongoing, because there is less overlap between TAP's business and Lufthansa's.
TAP says it carried 16.7 million passengers last year. Its fleet of more than 90 aircraft flies to over 90 destinations: 52 in Europe, 16 in Central and South America, 14 in Africa and 11 in North America. Analysts say its routes to Brazil are particularly prized.
The airline posted a net profit of 4.1 million euros ($4.6 million) last year, according to its published accounts.
Two earlier attempts to privatize TAP, in 1998 and 2015, failed, and the government took the company back into state ownership.
