ROME, Jan 22: 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.
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 nine-billion-euro ($10 billon) 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. -AFP
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