Pakistan government announced on Thursday that it was seeking fresh bids for the privatisation of the Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), marking a renewed effort to offload its stake in the national carrier.
The Privatisation Commission (PC) invited expressions of interest (EOIs) through an advertisement from investors interested in acquiring a majority stake in the restructured airline.
“Interested parties that are companies, firms, body corporate or other legal entities should submit EOIs (as a single entity or as a consortium)………with non-refundable processing fee of $5,000 or Rs1,400,000.
“Where an interested party is submitting an EOI as a consortium, the processing fee is only required to be paid by one member of the consortium……The EOI must be available with the Privatisation Commission and the processing fee must be paid, on or before 16:00 Hours, on Tuesday, June 3, 2025,” the advertisement read.
The government has been seeking to sell a 51-100% stake in the debt-ridden carrier, to raise funds and reform cash-draining, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) as envisaged under a $7 billion International Monetary Fund programme (IMF).
It failed in the first attempt to privatise the PIA last year after receiving a single offer, well below the asking price of more than $300 million.
Blue World City consortium refused to match the minimum expectation of the Privatisation Commission of Rs85.03 billion and stuck to its original offer of Rs10 billion for a 60% stake in the PIA, ending the bidding process of the national flag carrier’s privatisation.
The PC board approved seeking new bids, the ministry said in a statement last week.
“The board approved the pre-qualification criteria for selection of prospective bidders,” it said then.
The national carrier returned to profit after 21 years, posting a net profit of Rs26.2 billion for the year 2024. It recorded an operational profit of Rs9.3 billion for 2024, according to a PIA press release issued earlier this month.
The last time the PIA posted a profit was in 2003 and later remained in loss for the next two decades.
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PIA is a full service airline, providing aviation services supported by its ancillary segments. The business segments include passengers, ground handling, flight training, cargo engineering and flight kitchen.
In the last financial year, the advertisement says, PIA served approximately 4 million passengers across 30 destinations, carrying out 268 flights per week.
The Government of Pakistan (GOP) through PIA Holding Company Limited (PIA Holdco) owns approximately 96% of the issued capital of the PIA.
PIA and PIA Holdco filed a scheme of arrangement with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) under the Companies Act, 2017, which was sanctioned by the SECP through its order dated May 3, 2024 (SOA sanction order).
Pursuant to the SOA Sanction Order, non-core assets and non-core liabilities were transferred to PIA Holdco (non-core business) and the PIA continues to hold the core assets and core liabilities (core business).
The core business includes assets, liabilities, employees pertaining to air transport operations and allied services (including ground handling, flight training, cargo engineering and flight kitchen), rights and obligations under various operational agreements executed by the PIA including the air services agreements, code sharing agreements, fuel supply agreements and passenger sales agency agreements.
Pursuant to the SOA sanction order, the shareholders of PIA became the shareholders of PIA Holdco and PIA became a wholly-owned subsidiary of PIA Holdco, with a single class of ordinary shares.
PIA Holdco was listed on the stock exchange and PIA ceased to be listed.
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