Gadair to buy Spanair, BA denies bid for Iberia

Portuguese investment fund Longstock Financial and Gadair European Airlines are due to acquire SAS's Spanish airline Spanair this week, Portuguese newspaper Diario Economico reported.

"The purchase should be settled this week," the daily quoted the head of Longstock Financial, Vitor Pinto da Costa, as saying.

"We are in exclusive negotiations with Spanair and at this stage we are finalising some details."

An SAS spokesman said no agreement had been reached and talks were still under way with several potential buyers.

"We are still in the process and cannot confirm or deny this information," he said by telephone from Sweden.

Gadair is a private, Madrid-based airline that operates charter flights and said recently it plans to start a regular route between Madrid and Bahrain.

Spanish flag carrier Iberia has already made a bid for Spanair, the second-largest airline in the country, where low-cost airlines are carving out an ever larger presence. It did not say how much it had offered.

Meanwhile, British Airways said yesterday it had no current plans to bid for Iberia, after a newspaper speculated it was preparing an offer for the Spanish carrier.

BA said last week it had bought about another three per cent of Iberia, taking its stake to 13.15 per cent.

According to the Mail on Sunday, BA has not ruled out a bid. The airline sent a management team to Spain to talk to executives of investment bank Caja Madrid, which owns 23 per cent of Iberia, the newspaper added.

"It depends on the price. But we have made it clear that we will only do something in agreement," the newspaper quoted BA chief executive officer Willie Walsh as saying.

But BA denied a bid was imminent. "We have absolutely no current plans to make a bid for Iberia," said a spokesman.