Sept 16, 2021: Tata Group, one of India’s largest conglomerates, has confirmed that it has submitted a bid to buy the debt-ridden national carrier, Air India, which it owned decades before the nationalization of the airline.
India’s government has tried to sell its entire stake in the ailing company, setting a deadline of Wednesday’s bid after failing to earn any interest on the majority shares.
A Tata Group spokesman confirmed the news to AFP press agency without elaborating: “We have made a bid.”
Tata has already invested in Air Asia India and Vistara Airlines. According to a report in the Times of India, Ajay Singh, founder of Indian budget carrier SpiceJet, also submitted a bid in person. SpiceJet did not respond to an AFP request for comment. Tuhin Kanta Pandey, the government’s secretary for investment and public asset management, confirmed that bids had been received. He tweeted on Wednesday, “The process is now moving towards the final stage.”
The Tata Group started commercial air travel in India in 1932 with Tata Airlines. Once affectionately known as the “Maharaja of the Heavens”, the government later took over the airline and renamed it Air India.
But it has been losing money for more than a decade, borrowing billions of dollars and losing market share to low-cost competitors in the world’s fastest-growing, but highly competitive, airline markets.
Apart from Air India, the government also plans to raise billions of dollars through privatization of Bharat Petroleum and share sale of a major insurance company.
In August, New Delhi said it was seeking to lease state-owned assets to the private sector to raise $81 billion for repairing pandemic-affected public finances and new infrastructure.
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