Lufthansa CEO meets Portuguese ministers over taking stake in TAP, sources say

Lufthansa CEO Carsten Spohr is meeting with Portugal's centre-right government on Monday to formally signal his company's interest in the privatisation of state-owned carrier TAP, according to three sources with knowledge of the matter. One of the sources said Lufthansa is eyeing a 19.9% stake in TAP, below the 20% threshold that would require approval from the European Commission, the EU's antitrust regulator. Portugal's government and Lufthansa both declined to comment. The meeting between Spohr and the two officials who oversee TAP Air Portugal, Finance Minister Joaquim Miranda Sarmento and Infrastructure Minister Miguel Pinto Luz, was requested by Lufthansa, a second source said. Spohr, accompanied by three others, entered the main door of the finance ministry shortly after 11 a.m. local time (1000 GMT), where the infrastructure minister had arrived earlier. The meeting comes as Portugal seeks to push ahead with the privatisation of the airline, which is fully government-owned, by the end of this year, a third source said. The source said that while the sale process is still at a very early stage, the government intends to speed it up as everything indicates that there is interest from potential buyers. The first source said Lufthansa's view is that the government may prefer them as a buyer because they would preserve TAP's autonomy, but so far the formal process has not started.<br/>