Four terminal-operating companies and two private investment funds expressed their interest in acquiring a 67 percent stake in OLP, the Piraeus Port Authority, by this week’s deadline, according to the Hellenic Republic Asset Development Fund, the Greek state privatization agency.
They industry bidders are the following: APM Terminals, the Maersk group’s port operating arm; Hong Kong-based Cosco, parent of terminal operator Cosco Pacific; International Container Terminal Services of the Philippines; and Ports America Group Holdings.
Cartesian Capital Group, a New York-based private equity fund, and Utilico Emerging Markets, a Bermuda-incorporated close-ended investment company, also want to bid for the OLP stake.
The stake in OLP is worth around €300 million ($416 million) based on its share price on the Athens stock exchange.
Cosco Pacific is a front runner to acquire the OLP stake, as it already the port’s biggest container handler, having paid around $5 billion in 2009 for a 35-year management concession for two of the port’s three piers.
The Hong Kong company also agreed on terms with the Greek government to invest around €225 million to build a fourth pier to boost the port’s transshipment capacity.
Cosco Pacific has succeeded in transforming Piraeus from a low-productivity port plagued by poor labor relations into one of the fastest growing European container hubs.
Traffic at the Cosco Pacific terminals jumped 28 percent in the first quarter from a year earlier to just over 685,000 20-foot-equivalent units.
