Four suitors for Thessaloniki Port, Cosco is not involved

Four bids are expected to be tabled this week for the 67 percent stake in Thessaloniki Port Authority, Kathimerini understands.

The deadline of the tender – which has been going on since the summer of 2014 – is this Friday at 7 p.m. and the binding bids will be tabled at Morgan Stanley in London.

The offers will come from the consortium comprising Deutsche Invest Equity Partners, Terminal Link (a subsidiary of CMA CGM) and Russian-Greek investor Ivan Savvidis’s group, as well as from Dubai Ports World, Japan’s Mitsui & Co, and Philippines-based International Container Terminal Services.

The preferred bidder will have to implement investments of at least 180 million euros within seven years.

Talk of ties between any of the above candidates and the Cosco group, which has acquired Piraeus Port Authority, is refuted. Sources close to Cosco noted to Kathimerini that “the Chinese group is examining the form of its reaction to the discrimination that took place [at its expense] as in Piraeus Port only 51 percent was sold with another 16 percent due under certain conditions, while in Thessaloniki Port 67 percent is conceded with far fewer commitments.”