State Sells Olympic Airlines
Marfin Investment Group sealed a deal with the Greek government and will buy Olympic Airlines now that the European Commission gave the green light for the sale and a joint ministerial privatization committee approved the deal.
MIG will pay 45.7 million euros for Olympic’s flight operations and 16.7 million euros for its airline maintenance.
As for the airline’s ground handling, originally MIG was in discussions with Swissport for partnership.
Talks, however, did not end in agreement so MIG will purchase the ground handling operations as well, for 44.8 million euros. MIG plans to renew the airline’s fleet, restructure routes and hire some 4,000 employees.
The government had originally announced an international tender for the airline and its assets in January but the received bids were deemed unsatisfactory.
Also interested in the purchase of O.A. were Aegean Airlines and Chrysler, both which outbid MIG. Their offers, however, were rejected.