SriLankan Airlines: December talks with investors
Mismanagement investigations to continue :
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Eran Wickramaratne |
The government aims to start negotiations by December with the
shortlisted investors interested in running SriLankan Airlines, State
Enterprise Development Deputy Minister Eran Wickramaratne said.
The government’s call for Expressions of Interest had responses from
about nine parties, he said.
The government aims to start negotiations by December with the
shortlisted investors interested in running SriLankan Airlines, State
Enterprise Development Deputy Minister Eran Wickramaratne said.
The government’s call for Expressions of Interest had responses from
about nine parties, he said.
“They will be provided an information memorandum and there will be an
RFP (Request for Proposals) and based on that they will do their due
diligence,” he told Observer Business.
“By the end of the year, we would directly talk to the shortlisted
parties – that can be one or two or three. That’s the process of
restructuring. We are talking about getting an investor and new
management. There is a time-frame – by December we will get down the
parties and negotiations will begin.”
Wickramaratne said SriLankan Airlines has launched its internal
restructuring process to make it more attractive to prospective
investors. “The mandate given to them is that we want to eliminate the
losses of the airline – so for that they have to do route
rationalization, fleet rationalization, and cost rationalization to make
the airline more efficient.” Wickramaratne said the government is
struggling to turn the airline around because it had been mismanaged by
the last regime. “….because they have made payments excessively for
aircraft and aircraft leases. There needs to be further investigations
and it will be investigated,” he stressed.
- CJ
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