Korean Air bids for Czech Airlines: report

Korean Air has placed an official bid for a 44 per cent stake in the troubled Czech flagship carrier Czech Airlines (CSA), Czech media said on Monday.

The Koreans seek to acquire the minority stake for just a few million dollars, the top-selling Czech broadsheet daily DNES said on its website.

The Czech government set a March deadline for bids for the airline, which Ernst&Young auditors estimate to be worth 148 million koruna (US$7.5 million).

"This has happened, we didn't have to change the schedule," the CTK news agency quoted Michaela Lagronova, spokeswoman for the Cesky Aeroholding company that owns CSA, as saying.

She declined to give details however, saying that Finance Minister Miroslav Kalousek would present them after a cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

Qatar Airways, which had previously expressed interest in the CSA stake, would not take part in the bidding, DNES said.

The Czech Republic, which abandoned an attempt to sell the airline in 2009, is offering up to 96 per cent of the wholly government-owned carrier to European investors.

But under European regulations, the EU member can allow non-European companies to acquire only minority stakes in strategic companies.

With a fleet of 26 planes, CSA posted a loss of 241 million koruna in 2011.

SOURCE