Trade with Greece
45
Ports
The privatisation of Greece’s two largest ports,
the ports of Piraeus and Thessaloniki, is almost
halfway completed. The tenders are already
underway and non-binding bids have been sub-
mitted. The tenders were expected to move to
their final stage, albeit the process has been put
on hold until June.
TRAINOSE
All potential bidders for TRAINOSE and the
Hellenic Company for Rolling Stock Maintenance
(ROSCO) have been called to submit their non-
binding offers on March 24.
The government apparently has no other option
than to proceed with the privatisation of at least
TRAINOSE, as the EU had warned its predeces-
sor that, in case the privatisation deal does not
come to fruition, more than €850 million, which
have been deemed to be state aid to TRAINOSE,
will be called in. Apparently, the only bidder that
still remains in the game is the Russian Railways
(Rossiyskie Zheleznye Dorogi).
IPTO
The process for the privatization of the
Independent Power Transmission Operator
(IPTO) was launched in the spring of 2014, with
four foreign groups —Italy’s TERNA, Belgium’s
Elia, the China State Grid and a Canadian fund,
as well as an Indian company, which eventually
withdrew— expressing interest and being short-
listed. As a matter of fact, these companies had
performed due diligence on IPTO and were ready
to move to the second stage, concerning the sub-
mission of binding bids, which was put on hold
because of the election. ΤΕRNA recently
announced that it drops out of the tender, while,
shortly before the elections, the Canadian fund
had also indicated its intention to withdraw.
PPC
The government, through the competent Minister
of Productive Reconstruction, Environment and
Energy Panagiotis Lafazanis, remains adamant
on the issue of the privatisation of the Public
Power Corporation, stating that it will not move
forward with the plan for splitting the company in
two and selling the “small PPC”.
This is one of the most difficult, both politically
and technically, privatisation sales that had been
decided by the previous government; in fact, the
relevant law had also been passed, albeit the
process never took off.
A few months ago the company had launched the
procedure for hiring an advisor to set aside the
assets that would be transferred to the “small
PPC”, i.e. 30% of the power generating and trad-
ing portfolio of the existing company.
The projects that have been completed include:
•The sale of a 10% stake in OTE
•The sale of mobile telephony licenses
”
“
The planning of the
new government
suggests that each
case will be evaluated
on an
ad hoc
basis.
