2024-04-15 08:17:50
The government decided yesterday the immediate start of the sale of public property. Under the suffocating pressure of our lenders for privatization here and now, the government yesterday hung a “for sale now and as long” sign on OTE, the Postal Savings Bank (TT), the Piraeus Port Organization (PPA), the Thessaloniki Port Organization (OLTH) and the Thessaloniki Water Supply and Sewerage Company (EYATH).
These are privatizations of 100% of the state participation in these companies which, according to yesterday’s decisions, will be completed within the year. Fearing trade unionist Fotopoulos and the risk of “switching off”, the sale of PPC was postponed to the last quarter of 2012. At the same time, fulfilling another demand of the country’s lenders, the cabinet announced that a special agency was being created with the title “Public Property Fund”, which will include special portfolios for the utilization of the movable and immovable property of the State. It remains to be officially stated that this organization will be managed at the request of the troika and by foreign representatives of our lenders.
The process chosen to speed up privatizations is basically through the sale of equity stakes. The first privatization for this year is that of the public participation in OTE. It is controlled by the State 16% and it was announced that it will be sold by the end of June! Accordingly, by the end of the year T.T. should have been fully privatized. (the State controls 34%), EYATH, TLP and TLP. T.T. especially it is a fillet bank, since it has a deposit base of 12.5 billion Euros.
In total, TT, PPA, OLTH, OTE, and EYATH have a market value of just over 1.4 billion euros. In other words, their price is at its nadir. By September, the concession extension of the Athens International Airport (“El. Venizelos”) and the sale of a percentage of OPAP must also be completed, while by the end of the year the following must be sold: up to 66% of EAS, 49%-66 % from the State Lotteries, up to 32% from DEPA, 49%-100% from TRAINOSE, up to 55% from LARCO, 100% from ODIE (Hippodromos) and 49% from Parnitha Casino.
The 2011 privatizations are just the beginning. By the end of 2013, not one, not two, but 38 Greek State enterprises (or their parts) are planned to be sold!
In particular, 2012 is a year in which only for the first quarter it was planned to sell up to 21% of the airport “El. Venizelos”, up to 100% of Egnatia Road, up to 40% of EL.TA. and up to 34% of OPAP. Another package of ports will be sold by the end of 2012, while in the second quarter of the year the sale of up to 100% of the Deposit and Loan Fund and up to 16% of ELVO is determined. 27% of EYDAP was transferred for the third quarter of 2012, while at the end of the same year 49% of the Regional Airports will have been granted and, without their percentages being determined, the Hellenic Motorways, the area of Hellinikon, the Digital Spectrum and the Real Estate.
In 2013, 25% of Agrotika is sold, all other banking holdings and again what is left of Regional Airports, Ports, Real Estate, Digital Dividend and Greek Motorways.
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