The first negotiations round for privatizing Olympic Airlines between the Greek government and the Arabian Marfin Investment Group ended optimistically. Last week the sale tender of the Greek national airline ended without a winner because the bidding candidates offered very low prices and the believed favorite players withdrew from the competition. Yesterday’s conversations continued for almost two hours and in the next few days another meeting will be scheduled. The ambitions of the government are Olympic Airlines to be under the control of MIG in the next twenty days.

It became clear yesterday that the financial group want to buy all three Olympic companies – flying operations, technical support of the airplanes, and the land service. According the revaluations of the company’s assets those three parts are valued to be ?107 million. On the other hand, Marfin is ready to invest another ?100 million, in order to acquire also the airplanes of the company, which were part of the announced tender. The price of the flying operations includes the right to use the Olympic logo, the company’s slots and the assets of its successor “Panteon.”

“Our doors are still open for other investors,” said yesterday the minister of development Kostis Hadzidakis. After the failure of the official tender, it became clear that such investors are hard to find.