ATHENS - Three of the five original groups in the running to benefit from the privatisation of the ailing Greek national carrier Olympic Airlines remain in contention, Greece's finance minister said Wednesday.
"The process to sell Olympic continues, there are three interested parties, negotiations are progressing," George Alogoskoufis said after an inter-ministerial committee meeting on privatisations.
The minister declined to identify the investors still bidding for Olympic, but said that a June deadline for the conclusion of the process remained in effect.
The European Court of Justice recently ruled that Greece must recover 194 millions of euros in state aid granted to Olympic, which the government on May 12 pledged to do in a manner that would not jeopardise the carrier's privatisation.
In April, Greek officials said that five private companies had made bids to buy Olympic Airlines (OA), the successor to long-troubled Olympic Airways.
One of the bidders, Aegean Airlines, OA's chief competitor on domestic routes, said it would pursue the takeover only if it could ensure competitive prices and high-quality services for its passengers.
German holding company Intro, which partially controls low-cost operator Deutsche British Airways (DBA), has also stepped forward with an offer.
Local press reports say that the other candidates are British operators Klesch, a Greek-American consortium titled Olympic Investors, and the Dutch investment fund Sure Estates.
OA's latest privatisation process, the company's last according to the government, was revived in December 2004 following the failure of successive attempts by the previous socialist administration in 2000-2004.
According to the most recent official figures, Olympic incurred losses of 23 million euro in 2003. No figures are available for 2004, but Greek press reports place last year's losses at over 100 million euros.
05/25/2005 15:28 GMT