Battle for stake in ITA Airways heats-up

The battle for a (majority) stake in ITA Airways is heating-up. It was already known that Lufthansa had teamed-up with shipping company MSC to invest in the company but now two more parties have expressed interest. Since then Lufthansa has said that when it would invest, it wouldn't be for the majority of the shares.

The first other party interested to invest in ITA is a combination of Air France-KLM and Delta Air Lines, which aims to acquire the majority of the shares of ITA Airways. The SkyTeam-partners are supported in this bid by investment fund Certares.

Another party interested in a stake in ITA Airways is Indigo Partners, the US-investment firm that owns (part of) Frontier Airlines, Wizz Air, Lynx Air, JetSMART and Volaris.

All interested partners have to submit a formal Expression of Interest and these will then be discussed by the current owner of ITA Airways, the Italian state. Most definitely to be continued.

Photo by ITA Airways.