Turkish Airlines and Garuda interested in SriLankan Airlines

By Duruthu Edirimuni Chandrasekera
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Four airlines – Turkish Airlines, Hainan – China’s largest privately-owned air transport firm, Japan’s ANA and Indonesia’s Garuda Airlines – have shown interest in crisis-hit SriLankan Airlines which is looking for a partner, official source said. They also said BNP Paribas and KPMG appointed as transaction advisors in Sri Lankan Airlines’ quest to find a strategic partner have tapped a number of foreign airlines in creating an ‘appetite’ towards a partnership with the debt-ridden national carrier. ”The two agencies solicited certain parties by discussing with certain airlines in their data base/airlines that they work with,” a top official close to the restructuring of the national carrier told the Business Times.

He added that as both parties have international presence, they tapped these airlines to send in their Expressions of Interest (EOI). “They did their own solicitations and some were successful,” he said. NSB Fund Management (NSBFM), a unit of state-run National Saving Bank (NSB) and the lead managers to airline’s restructuring drive, said that while there’re eight EOI confirmed for the national carrier, two more are being finalised.NSB Chairman Asvin de Silva told the Business Times that a project management team under NSBFM has already received eight EOI and two are still being worked out.

The EOI timeline for the ‘reorientation’ of SriLankan Airlines and Mihin Lanka has been extended by a week until August 31, as the ‘appetite’ for the EOI was encouraging, he said. ”We extended the EOI closing date till end of this month. By about end of September we’ll be collecting the EOIs. Once we go through them, we aim to shortlist the EOI and call the shortlisted parties to submit proposals,” he said adding after this they will get these parties to carry out a due diligence on the airline.